Bingo
by TheWeatherOutside
Summary: A collection of prompts that have been filled out for Bad Things Happen Bingo. Aka the bros get hurt, again, in many different ways.
1. Hypothermia

_Heyo! I've decided to sign up for Bad Things Happen Bingo, where I will be filling out a bunch of prompts to complete a bingo card!_

_First prompt: Gordon + Hypothermia_

* * *

Gordon shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat, regretting that he couldn't find his gloves that morning before school. What he didn't regret was deciding to dry his hair off before he made his way home. Even with a hat on, he did not like to think how much colder he'd be feeling if he was walking home with wet hair.

He was on his way home from swim practice after school. He and his brothers would normally take the bus to and from school, but after practice he usually got picked up. His dad had to work late that day, though, and the only one of his brothers who could drive was Scott. However, his car was at the garage getting fixed. Gordon didn't know what was wrong with it, all he did know was that it meant he had to make his own way home.

He didn't mind it. There was a bus that ran later for all those who stayed behind for afterschool activities. The only problem with that one was that it didn't take Gordon as far as his usual one did, so he had to walk the rest of the way home. It wasn't far, though, and he enjoyed the quiet country roads that made up the final stretch of his journey.

However, the snow had picked up as soon as he'd stepped off the bus, and even though he had a thick coat on, he could already feel the chill reach him through it.

He pulled his scarf over his mouth and nose to warm his face up, but as he did so, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Gordon squinted through the snow and saw that on the field next to him, there was a pond.

It was frozen over, and standing in the middle of that pond, was a dog.

The dog was standing still, clearly too scared to move. Gordon didn't even think about it before he was making his way through the snow and towards the pond.

He stood at the edge and tried to call the dog over to him. When the dog noticed Gordon, it went to move, but it slipped as it took a step and that was enough for it to stop making any more attempts at moving.

A long whine echoed across the pond as the dog looked at Gordon sadly, and that was enough to kick Gordon into gear.

He dropped his backpack onto the snowy bank and hesitantly stepped closer to the ice. He tested the strength of the ice at the edge of the pond with one foot. It didn't seem to crack as he slowly applied his weight to it, but it couldn't have been that thick as it only started snowing a few days ago.

Although, he was little and light, so he hoped that the ice would hold up for a short while.

He crouched down towards the ice to spread his weight out. He couldn't remember where he'd learnt that technique from, but he was thankful for it now.

He was really regretting not bring gloves as his hands touched the ice and sent a burning chill through his fingers, but he pushed through it and crawled towards the dog who still had yet to move.

It was slow progress as Gordon was worried that if he went too fast, that would cause the ice to crack, but eventually he made it to the dog.

"Come here," he tried to encourage the dog closer to him, but it just continued to stare down at him curiously.

Gordon pushed himself up so he could reach out towards the dog, but as soon as his fingers brushed against the fur, the dog was shocked out of whatever fearful trance it was in. It suddenly bolted across the lake in the opposite direction, making it clear of the pond in just a few seconds and then it was out of sight.

However, under the weight of the dog and its quick movements, the ice beneath Gordon began to crack. He tried to turn around and head back to the bank, but he wasn't fast enough.

Gordon felt himself hit the icy water and the breath was knocked out of him. He scrambled to find purchase on the ice, and fortunately managed to grip onto one of the thicker pieces of ice before his upper body hit the water as well.

He pulled himself back up on the ice. It was difficult as the water kept trying to pull him back under and his wet clothes were dragging him down, but he eventually managed to get free of the water. He quickly crawled across the remaining pieces of ice and made it back to the bank before he fell in again.

He fell onto the snow and pulled his knees to his chest as the shivers started to set in. Even though only his lower half got wet, his whole body was freezing. Gordon knew he needed to get back home before he froze to death out there, so he pushed himself up on aching legs and grabbed his backpack from where he left it.

He ran home, trying to both get home as fast as possible and keep his body heat up for longer. He didn't have far to go, but it wasn't long before his limbs felt stiff with the cold and he couldn't move faster than a slow walk. It didn't help that the snow hadn't let up yet.

The only thing that kept Gordon going was the house that he could see in the distance. The lights were on and Gordon could practically feel the warmth that he knew would be inside.

He staggered the rest of the way up the long drive. He stumbled up the steps of the porch and rapped his knuckles against the door. His keys were in his bag, but he felt like he didn't have the energy to rummage through it. His fingers were probably too frozen to use a key anyway.

His knock was quiet, and he was worried that no one would have heard it, but after a long moment, the door opened, and he practically fell into the arms of the person who was on the other side.

"Gordon? You're freezing, what happened?" It was Scott, and Gordon gazed up at the worried look on his face.

"Th-there was a f-fro-frozen pond. I f-fell," he got out through chattering teeth. Scott had closed the door behind him, and Gordon could feel the warmth of the house around him, but it did barely anything to fight the cold that had settled into his bones.

"Who's at the door?"

Gordon heard the voice from down the hallway, and he peered around Scott to find Virgil emerging from the living room.

"Gordon! What happened?" Virgil voiced the same question as Scott as he laid eyes on him.

"He fell in a pond," Scott provided so Gordon didn't have to reply again. He was already helping Gordon out of his wet coat. "Can you go find some spare blankets?"

Virgil gave Scott a nod and then hurried off to where they kept the spare blankets. The commotion had drawn John and Alan out of wherever they had been in the house.

"I don't like how cold you are. We should probably go to the hospital." Scott was frowning down at Gordon.

"How, though?" Virgil had re-emerged with armfuls of blankets. He draped them over Gordon's shoulders, and Gordon happily snuggled into them. "Your car is at the garage."

"There's the old one out in the barn?" John suggested from where he stood halfway down the stairs, leaning over the banister.

"That one hasn't worked in a year."

"Weren't you and dad working on it, though? I thought you said it was fixed."

"We haven't gotten around to testing it out yet," Scott replied, although he seemed to be considering it. Scott turned back to look at Gordon, who was still shaking even though he was bundled in blankets. That glance seemed to be enough to make up his mind. "I guess now is as good a time as any to test it out. Alright, get ready to leave. I'll bring the car out front."

Scott grabbed his coat and a set of keys, and then opened the front door and stepped outside. The door closed behind him, but Gordon could still feel the cold that the wind had blown inside.

Gordon had been tiredly staring at where Scott once stood, so he didn't notice his brother come up next to him until the blankets were being moved from his shoulders.

He went to protest the removal of his only source of warmth, but when he looked up, he saw the coat that was in Virgil's hands.

Gordon let Virgil move the blankets so he could slip Gordon's arms into the new, dry coat. He recognised it as one of Scott's, and he smiled at the long sleeves that hung over his frozen hands. Virgil draped the blankets back over Gordon's shoulders, and then bent down so Gordon could climb on his back and he could carry him out the door.

Gordon was surprised that his brother could still carry him without a problem, but he was thankful for it as he didn't think he could walk out to the car.

Scott had just pulled up at the end of the porch when they exited the house, and Gordon was glad to see that the car appeared to be working just fine.

He sat in the back of the car, sandwiched between Virgil and Alan. He ended up leaning heavily on Virgil, but he didn't think his brother minded as he had wrapped an arm around Gordon's shoulder.

The heating was on in the car and Gordon was beginning to feel tired. His eyes started to slip shut, but he was woken up by his brother jostling him.

"Don't fall asleep," Virgil commanded gently. Gordon tried to obey and keep his eyes open as long as he could, but it was hard and despite his efforts, he could feel the fatigue take over.

* * *

Gordon was sat on the hospital bed, buried under more blankets than he could count. He was tired, but he couldn't sleep anymore. Their dad was meant to be there any minute now, and Gordon was dreading how he was going to react.

As if on cue, there was a knock at the door, and the door opened to reveal his father.

"Gordon, I'm surprised to see you awake." He stepped into the room. "How're you feeling?" He brushed the hair out of Gordon's face and gave him a soft smile.

"Fine," Gordon mumbled.

"Doctor says that if all keeps going well, you can come home soon." He perched on the chair next to the bed that Scott had been on, before he went to go join his brothers out in the hall once they'd heard their dad would be there soon. "That's good."

"I guess." Gordon wasn't looking at his dad, instead he was looking down at where he was fiddling with the edge of one of the blankets.

"What's wrong?" His dad sounded worried, and that made Gordon feel worse.

"I'm sorry," he finally said.

Jeff sat back in shock. "What? Why are you sorry?"

"I didn't mean to get hurt and drag everybody here. I was an idiot; I should have just gone straight home."

Gordon felt a hand settle on the blankets, right above his knee.

"Gordon."

Gordon looked up at his dad, who was watching him with a small smile and an understanding look on his face.

"Your brothers told me what you'd told them, about the dog? You did the right thing. You saved that dog, don't feel sorry for that." He smiled at Gordon, but then chuckled. "You know, when I was your age, I did a very similar thing with a cat in a tree. Ended up in the hospital with a broken arm, but your grandma wasn't mad at me because I still managed to get that cat down. Just like I'm not mad at you. I'm just glad you're okay."

Gordon watched him for a moment, before he laughed.

"You really fell out of a tree to save a cat?"

"Yep." Jeff stood up from the chair he was on to sit on the edge of the bed. He fished out one of Gordon's hand from beneath the blankets. His hand was warm and fought away the chill that still lingered around. "But I don't feel bad about it, just like you shouldn't. Rescuing people, even if they're just animals, isn't a thing to feel sorry for."

His dad always knew just what to say to make him feel better. He uncovered his other hand from the blanket it was under and reached out to his dad. He drew Gordon into a hug that was warm and secure and much comfier than the blankets were.

Gordon closed his eyes as his dad settled against the bed and Gordon rested his head against his chest. He thought about what his dad had said, and as he drifted off into a warm and peaceful sleep, he decided that maybe it was worth it after all.


	2. Loss of Sight

_Gordon + Loss of Sight_

* * *

Gordon's eyes were in agony. He pressed the palm of his hands into the sockets to try and push the pain away, but it didn't do anything. He could feel the tears spill down his face as they tried to wash out whatever had gotten into his eyes. It felt like a million tiny rocks were beneath his eyelids and he squeezed them shut as blinking made his eyes feel like they were being scratched.

Gordon's ears were also still ringing from the explosion and everything around him sounded muffled, but soon he could hear his brother calling out to him as he got closer.

"Gordon! What happened?" Virgil's concerned voice pierced through the ringing. Gordon couldn't see his brother, but he was sure Virgil's brow would be furrowed in worry.

"Something in my eyes," Gordon said through clenched teeth. 'Something' was an understatement. It was many things trapped in his eyes and he had to resist the temptation of rubbing his eyes to get them out.

He didn't hear his brother step closer, so when he felt the hand on his shoulder, he couldn't help but flinch back.

"Sorry." The hand was gone for a second before it came back on his arm. "Let me see."

He carefully tried to pry Gordon's hands from his eyes and Gordon let him, but his eyes were still squeezed shut. He could feel Virgil's gloved hand gently touch the area around his eyes.

"Open your eyes."

"Hurts," Gordon replied, but he still reluctantly opened them.

He could only open them halfway because it hurt too much, and he couldn't see anything as it was all blurred. He squinted at the blurry figure of Virgil as he leant in close and tried to not recoil when Virgil's touch sparked pain through his eyes.

"I can't quite see what the problem is without a light, but I think at least your corneas are scratched. What exactly happened?" Virgil sounded deep in thought, but also confused as he hadn't been in the room with Gordon when the bomb-like thing went off.

"I don't know. There was a box that exploded when I entered the room." Gordon pointed randomly in the direction he was sure the box had been, but he couldn't see and had probably been turned around. So, it was likely he was pointing in the complete wrong direction, but he knew Virgil would get the general gist.

Virgil's hands left him, and Gordon could hear him step away. Unconsciously, Gordon's eyes closed again. He wasn't even sure if his eyes being closed made the pain slightly more bearable, but it felt like it should.

Gordon could hear Virgil shuffling about. The fact that Gordon was left standing on his own without being able to see was starting to get to him. The room suddenly felt so large. He didn't know how far away or close anything was. It was like being in a room with all the lights switched off and you didn't know what could be hiding in the dark depths of the room.

He knew it was stupid to think like that, but he still tentatively stepped closer to where he thought his brother would be, so he wasn't all by himself. He stopped when he almost tripped over something and decided that for now, standing still was probably the safest option even though it didn't seem ideal.

Thankfully, a moment later Virgil's voice spoke up again and Gordon could hear him walk back over to him.

"Seems like it was a small explosive filled with sand, or some kind of fine substance? Probably had some sort of proximity sensor that detected when you got close and that triggered it to explode. Your eyes should be fine in time, but I'll need to flush them out as soon as possible. So, we'll need to get out of here promptly."

That was easier said than done.

They were currently in the middle of a rescue at some underground lab. Although, 'rescue' was probably a bit of a stretch at that point. They hadn't seen a single person around since they'd arrived, and the lab looked like it had been abandoned for years.

Not only that, just a few minutes after they had arrived, the entrance into the lab collapsed on them. Since then, they had been making their way through the lab towards the emergency exit near the back of the facility.

Gordon had been walking ahead of Virgil. The emptiness of the lab had begun to unsettle Gordon, though he wouldn't have admitted to it, so he didn't want to hesitate in getting to the exit. Especially once they found out they were the only two there. That was why he had been the one to step into the room and trigger that explosive, whilst Virgil had been far from it.

"What's worrisome is that someone must have left this explosive here." Gordon could practically picture the frown that would currently be on his brother's face. "And the question is, who?"

"Probably whoever called us here in the first place." And Gordon didn't want to stick around any longer in case the person was still around.

"We shouldn't be too far from the exit now."

"Cool, let's go then."

"Hold on one second." Virgil's words were accompanied by his hand coming to rest on Gordon's shoulder, which startled Gordon a bit more than it should have. "I should have a couple of bandages on me. Let me wrap your eyes first."

His hand was gone again and then Gordon could hear Virgil rummaging around in his belt. Several moments later, his hands were back as he carefully wrapped a bandage around Gordon's head and over his eyes. Gordon could feel the fabric settle over his face and then the remaining snippets of light he could see through his eyelids were gone.

"Alright, that's the best I can do until we get back to Thunderbird Two," Virgil said as he tied off the end of the bandage. "Hold onto me and we'll move slow. If you want to stop for a bit just let me know."

Gordon wanted to leave as soon as possible, so he was not planning on making use of that offer. Gordon felt Virgil slip his hand into his own, and Gordon held his other hand out to feel for anything he might walk into.

Virgil wasn't lying when he said they'd go slow. Gordon didn't really have much of a concept of how far they had been, but the steps they were taking were small and steady. Gordon appreciated the slow speed, though, as he was constantly worried about tripping over something he couldn't see.

Gordon was pretty sure they left the room a few minutes later, as he heard a door creaking open in front of them.

"The exit should be just down this- oh." Virgil's voice fell and they came to a stop, which indicated that something was wrong, but he didn't elaborate any further.

"What is it?" Gordon prompted, his heart starting to race slightly at the unknown.

"It's nothing. Just the ceiling's collapsed halfway down this hallway and is now blocking the way." Virgil was speaking in that way that said he was trying to make the situation seem less worse than it actually was, so he didn't worry any younger brothers. But Gordon saw, or he guessed _heard_, right through it.

"Doesn't sound like nothing."

"It shouldn't be too much trouble." Virgil's optimism didn't fade, and he still seemed calm. They were then moving again as Virgil started to walk and pull Gordon along with him. "It doesn't look like a lot of debris. I should just be able to move some of it out of the way and laser-cut through the rest. Shouldn't take too long."

Virgil sounded confident that the situation wasn't too bad, so Gordon just had to trust that he was right.

Virgil lead Gordon over to a wall so that Gordon could lean against it whilst he got to work on moving the debris. All Gordon could hear was the debris shift and Virgil's grunts as he lifted and moved it out of the way.

Maybe because Gordon had lost one of his senses, his ears were more attuned to hearing all the shifts in the sounds around them. Which was why several minutes into waiting for Virgil to move the debris, he was the first one to hear the new sound that could be heard further down the hallway.

Gordon stood up straight and turned towards the source of the sound, but then remembered that he couldn't see.

"Uh, Virgil?" Gordon whispered, not wanting to alert whatever the source of the noise was. There was the chance that he had imagined the sound, or it was just another piece of rubble falling from the ceiling, but there was also the chance that this could be whoever had left that friendly little bomb for them.

"Yes, Gordon?" Virgil had already gotten his laser out and the sounds of debris being cut in half stopped as Virgil waited for a reply.

"What's that sound?" Gordon tried to helpfully point in the direction he heard the suspicious noise, but for all he knew he could have been facing a wall.

Virgil went quiet, which did nothing to relieve Gordon's anxiety. With his silence, the sound that Gordon heard had begun to get louder. It also sounded like it was getting closer.

Gordon's heart rate shot up when suddenly Virgil gasped.

"Get back!" Virgil yelled as he grabbed onto Gordon arm and pulled him, Gordon presumed, behind his back.

Gordon tried to not fall over as Virgil let go and he stumbled over a piece of debris.

"What is it?" Gordon was beginning to panic, and he reached out to try and find a wall or something to steady himself.

"One of the Mechanic's mechas." Virgil's voice sounded strained as he fought to keep the mecha back, and Gordon's heart started to race.

_The Mechanic_. He was here and he had sent his mechas after them. Virgil said that it was only one of them, but who knew if there were more lurking around the corner.

Gordon wanted to help him somehow, but he couldn't see, and he knew he would just be more of a hinderance than anything. He didn't want to leave his brother on his own, though. The Mechanic was bad news and Gordon could only imagine what he was doing there. And more than that, why he had called them there in the first-place reporting of a rescue.

However, it seemed his brother didn't need his help, as a moment later Gordon could hear the screeching of metal and then it got quiet again, save for Virgil's heavy breathing.

Gordon didn't know if it was safe to speak, but he needed to know what had happened and if his brother was okay.

"Virg?" Gordon asked tentatively.

"It's alright, I got it with my laser. That one won't be causing us any more problems." Virgil still sounded slightly out of breath, but Gordon could already hear him head back to the wall of debris in their way.

"That doesn't mean there aren't others that will." Gordon hadn't successfully managed to find the wall he was up against before, so instead he was just standing there with nothing to ground him, looking around a hallway he couldn't see for dangers he didn't know were there.

He tried to calm his nerves by listening to the sounds of Virgil cutting away at the debris. After several minutes of just hearing Virgil work with no other suspicious noises, Gordon felt himself relax slightly. However, by that point he should have known that it was always too early to think that you were out of the woods yet.

The sound at the other end of the hallway was back again and Gordon felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up when this time it sounded like there was more than just one mecha headed towards them.

"Virgil..."

"Yeah, I know. I'm trying to be quick before they-" Virgil's words were cut off with a yell. Gordon could hear him hit the floor.

"Virgil!" Gordon took an instinctive step towards his brother, before he stopped with the reminder that he couldn't see and would not be able to help Virgil without putting himself in further danger.

Gordon heard a noise too close to himself and didn't even have time to react before a heavy weight slammed into his side.

He hit the ground hard and the impact sent a throbbing pain through his head and his eyes began to water again. He could feel the metal legs of the mecha as it pinned him down. Gordon pushed at the body on top of him, but it wouldn't budge.

Suddenly, a spark of pain flared in his hand and he quickly withdrew his arm as the mecha electrocuted him.

He could feel the mecha get close to his face and he scrambled to find something he could use as a weapon. His hand brushed against a piece of debris and Gordon lifted it off the floor and smashed it towards where he thought the mecha was.

He almost missed, but just managed to catch the mecha enough to push it back slightly. He gripped the piece of debris with both hands and drove it down at the mecha again once, twice, until he felt the robot slump its heavy weight on top of him.

Gordon pushed at the weight and as soon as he felt the mecha's body fall of him, he scrambled to stand up again. He stumbled over the debris on the floor and fell back down onto the pile of rubble.

"Gordon?" Suddenly, Virgil's voice was there again, concerned and right in front of him. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah. I think so." His hand still stung slightly, but other than that he was alright. Except for the whole eye thing. "Are they all gone?"

"For now. Good job on taking down that one that got you, by the way. I would have helped, but I was a little busy."

"Don't sweat it." Gordon laughed to try and shake the jittery feelings that the mechas left behind.

Virgil most likely saw through it as he didn't join in on the laughter and instead helped Gordon up from the floor.

"Let's go now before they come back. I've cut a way through the debris big enough for us to get through. Hopefully, the mechas won't fit through, too."

Virgil took Gordon's hand in his and directed him past the debris. Gordon almost tripped over more than once, but Virgil was always there to stop him from falling.

Eventually, they made it through, and Virgil was dragging Gordon along at a much quicker pace. He couldn't hear the mechas following behind, but it did sound like they were trying to break through the debris, so they didn't slow down.

They were practically running down the hallway, but then Virgil stopped suddenly, and Gordon slammed into his back.

"There's more in front," Virgil said, and he started to push Gordon to the side. "In here."

A door opened to Gordon's right and Virgil pushed him past it. He heard the door shut as Virgil followed.

Gordon was left to stand on his own as he heard what sounded like Virgil barricading the door. It seemed like that was true as barely a few moments later, there was a bang on the other side of the door that echoed around them as the mechas threw their weight against it. There was no sound that indicated they had gotten past it, though, so it seemed they were safe for now.

"Where are we?" Gordon asked as he felt Virgil grab his hand and they continued to move.

"Another hallway, it seems. Should still take us to the exit, but if we can get there, then those mechas probably can too. So, we should still hurry."

Even though he said to hurry, Virgil still kept his pace fairly slow, which Gordon was thankful for. He was already tripping over his feet with every step.

They somehow managed to make it to a set of stairs without further incident. Virgil guided Gordon up them so he didn't fall flat on his face, but just as they reached the top, they heard the sounds of metal feet scuttling across the floor below.

"Move!" Virgil yelled and Gordon didn't need telling twice.

He knew they were close to the exit as that was the only thing that the stairs led to, so he didn't mind running for the final stretch, especially as he heard the footsteps quickly climbing the steps and this time it sounded like there were much more mechas than there was before.

Gordon yelped when he tripped and fell, his hand slipping out of Virgil's, but as he hit the floor, he felt dirt beneath him and the sun beaming down on his face. A heavy door slammed shut behind him and heard the heavy breaths of his brother next to him.

"Never want to do _that_ again," Virgil huffed out.

"Try doing it blind next time." Gordon laughed to try and make light of the situation, but his eyes still stung, and he didn't think he was fooling anyone. Especially as he gently touched the area around his eyes and let out a wince.

"Speaking of, let's head back to Thunderbird Two before anything else pops out at us."

He felt Virgil's hand on his arm as he helped him up from the floor and together, they made it back to his brother's ship.

They didn't know why The Mechanic had sent his mechas there, but it was clear he led them into that trap for a reason, so they set John on the task of trying to figure it out. Until then, Gordon had the fun task of waiting for his eyes to heal.

He supposed he should be glad that it wasn't worse, but it still wasn't fun to have your eyes blasted with water and a bandage covering them so you can't see anything. Then again, he now had an excuse for his brothers to be at his beck and call, and that meant there were so many ways to mess with them, which would definitely distract him from the pain.


	3. Captivity

_Scott & Gordon + Captivity_

* * *

He groaned as he woke to a pounding in his head. His whole body ached and felt like it was contorted into an odd position. He had a hard time remembering where he was, so he slowly peeled open eyes that wanted to stay closed and took in his surroundings.

He was in a dark, dingy room with no one else around, and he had no idea how he'd gotten there. He looked down and saw that he was in a chair, and the reason his arms ached was because they were twisted behind his back. He fiddled around and found that his wrists were tied together with rope.

Alarm bells started to ring, and he struggled against the binds. He racked his brain for what had happened that got him into this situation. As his mind woke up, the memories came rushing back.

There was a rescue. It had been and earthquake. He and his brothers had been searching the area for survivors, and had just reached the end of the rescue and were looking in the remaining houses. He'd gone into a house; it had seemed quiet and he had called out to see if someone was inside.

Then, someone stepped out. They were dressed entirely in black, and that was the last thing he saw before something hit the back of his head and he was out.

Something still seemed to be missing from his memory, and he thought harder to remember what it was.

Then it suddenly hit him.

He hadn't been alone. He'd gone into that building with his brother.

Gordon.

Where was he?

Scott struggled against the rope even more as he frantically searched around the room again.

Nothing. Just him and his chair.

Gordon must be here somewhere, though. Whoever took Scott must have done so for a reason, so they wouldn't have left his brother behind.

They had likely been waiting in that building for them, but the question was, who was it and what did they want?

As if someone had heard his question, the next moment the door into the room opened and a man walked in.

He was dressed in black, and even though his memory was blurry, Scott was sure this was the same man he'd seen in that house before he was knocked out.

"Who are you?" Scott didn't even wait for the other man to speak before he got to it. "Why am I here?"

"Scott Tracy, isn't it?" The door closed behind the man and he came to stand in front of Scott. He spoke with a slight accent, although Scott couldn't quite tell where he was from. "Pilot of Thunderbird 1."

A cold dread started to fill Scott. It was true that they didn't keep their identities as much of a secret as they had when they'd first started International Rescue, but the way this man said his name made Scott think that he knew a lot more than he should.

"See, I know a lot about you, but not as much as I'd like. Which is why you're here."

"Who are you?" Scott asked again, the dread filling him up more.

"The more important question you should ask is what do I want." The man stood only a step in front of Scott, looming over him. Scott wanted to thrash out at him, kick him, but he found that his ankles were tied to the legs of the chair. "And what I want is information. About International Rescue, which is what you're going to give me."

"I'm not telling you anything," Scott growled through clenched teeth, but his heart rate had begun to quicken.

"I thought you would say that." The man turned and walked back over to the door. "Which is why I brought incentive."

He opened the door and stepped out of the way. A moment later, two more men entered the room holding a person between them who was clad in a familiar blue and yellow.

It felt like Scott's breathing stopped as his brother was pushed down to kneel in front of him. His hands were tied, and he had a blindfold on and a gag in his mouth.

"Gordon…" Scott gasped out at the sight of his little brother. His face was bruised slightly, but other than that, he didn't appear to be injured. Scott didn't want to think about it, but he was beginning to see where this was headed, and he didn't think Gordon would stay like that for long.

Gordon's head turned in his direction after hearing his voice, shock filling his face and clearly not expecting Scott to be in the room.

"Gordon Tracy. Pilot of Thunderbird 4, and your little brother, correct?"

Scott's eyes never left Gordon, but Gordon had turned towards the voice of the other man in the room, seeming just as confused and scared as Scott had been when he'd heard his name be uttered by this man.

"I hope you see where this is going."

Scott did. Tears filled his eyes as he struggled against his restraints again. His gaze broke from Gordon as he faced the man.

"Don't hurt him."

The man smiled.

"I won't need to, as long as you talk."

Scott couldn't. They all knew that when they joined International Rescue, they couldn't let out any of the secrets as to how the operation worked. Not about the details of the Thunderbirds, or where they held their operations, nothing.

They vowed that no matter what, they would keep their dad's secrets just that. They couldn't let that information fall into the wrong hands, because who knew what they would use it for. But Scott never thought he'd be in a situation like this.

One of the men who brought Gordon in ripped the blindfold off of his face. Gordon's eyes immediately found Scott's, and he shot him a determined look. He did not want Scott to break just because of him.

The man seemingly in charge came back over to stand by Scott, off to the side so that Scott could still see him, but he wasn't blocking Scott's view to Gordon.

"Let's get started, shall we?"

* * *

The man who was holding Gordon upright let him go and his brother slumped to the floor, taking in deep, ragged breaths. Scott's hands were clenched tightly behind his back, nails digging painfully into his palms. Although, he was sure that was nothing compared to what Gordon was enduring.

"Want to try again?" The man hadn't moved from his spot. He'd simply watched as his grunts dealt blows to Gordon. "Answer the question."

"No." Scott was filled with shame and could barely look at Gordon because he knew it was his fault. He was watching him anyway, because Gordon was looking at him with sheer determination through the pain in his eyes. Gordon would not crack, and as much as Scott hated to say it, he wouldn't either.

"Suit yourself. It's only going to get worse from here."

With one simple flick of the wrist, he commanded his men to manhandle Gordon back upright again. Gordon stood hunched over, curling into the pain he must be feeling in his ribs, and Scott wasn't too sure whether he'd be able to stand on his own if it wasn't for the men holding him up.

Scott watched as these men took Gordon out of the room and left without another word.

Scott tried to yell out to Gordon, to tell him that it was all going to be okay, but he didn't know how true those words were. He had no idea who these people were, or if anyone knew where they were.

It was probably going to be a while before they got rescued, _if_ they got rescued.

He didn't think he could see his brother get beaten into an inch of his life because of _him_ again, but he knew that whatever came next was just going to be much worse than that.

* * *

Scott had been left on his own for a bit, probably about an hour or so. He'd sat and replayed the previous hours of that day so far in his head. Of seeing his brother be punched and kicked right at Scott's feet, with Scott unable to help.

Well, he _could_ help. There was always talking, but he wouldn't, _shouldn't_. Gordon would be less likely to forgive him if he broke.

Scott just wasn't sure he couldn't forgive _himself_ if he didn't.

Eventually, there was the sound of the door unlocking and the man in charge entered, quickly followed by his lackeys and Gordon, who only looked a tad better than when he'd left. He looked like he was trying to smile through the gag in his mouth, but Scott couldn't find it in himself to return it.

"If you're still so adamant to stay quiet," the man spoke. "Then we're just going to keep trying new…ways to get you to open up."

The man reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small device. Before Scott could work out what it was, it was being swung towards Gordon's abdomen.

Gordon hunched over but was held upright by the men who had a rough grip on both his arms. Scott could hear sparks of electricity, and he realised that the device was a stun gun.

It was held against Gordon's stomach for a long moment before it was pulled away. Gordon only had a second to draw in a breath before he was shocked again in the chest.

Scott felt like his heart stopped when Gordon was shocked in the neck. The stun gun was held there for the longest time, and Scott clenched his teeth as his brother chocked and he willed himself not to speak.

The man locked eyes with Scott, and although Scott didn't say anything, he pleaded the man to let his brother go with the look in his eyes.

"Speak," the man said.

Scott didn't. He watched his brother struggle to breathe as his throat was attacked by electric shocks. Scott felt like he couldn't breathe either.

The gun was removed, and Gordon fell to the floor as the grip on him was released. He coughed and gasped for a breath, rubbing at his sore throat as he did so.

"Hey!" Scott couldn't help but speak then as one of the men kicked his brother in the abdomen, right in the spot he had been shocked in moments before, knocking the air back out of him.

"Oh, so that you didn't like, hm?" The man sent Scott a smile, and Scott snapped his mouth shut, like he should have done before. The man kicked Gordon again, this time in the chest where the bruises already laid after his previous beatings. Gordon winced and still struggled for breath. "Then I'll make sure to keep it up."

He turned and left the room, but his two thugs stayed where they were, along with Gordon on the floor, who was still breathing heavily.

"Gordon." Scott leant forward in his chair as much as his restraints would allow him and whispered down at his brother. "I'm so sorry, we're going to get out of this but-"

"Stop talking," one of the other men harshly commanded.

Scott didn't say anything else, fearing that if he did it would result in him getting Gordon hurt even _more_. Gordon pushed himself up onto his knees, his breathing steadier although still shaky. He mumbled something through the gag and although Scott couldn't understand what he'd said, he could still read the look on his brother's face. It was the same one he'd been giving Scott all day, and although he was telling Scott that it was okay, that still didn't make Scott _feel_ okay.

The next moment, the man who'd left came back in the room. Scott was relieved to see he was no longer holding the stun gun, but then his stomach dropped as he saw the new piece of equipment in the man's hand.

It was a hammer.

The man came to stand over Gordon, who had also noticed what the man was holding. He was still trying to put on a brave face for Scott, but Scott could see the worry begin to come through.

"I'll ask you again." The man gripped the hammer in his hand, but didn't turn to face Scott as he spoke, just continued to glare down at Gordon as Gordon's eyes never left the hammer. "Give me the schematics for the Thunderbirds."

Scott had to fight every urge that told him to open his mouth and speak, but that became increasingly difficult when the man swung the hammer down and into Gordon's shoulder.

Gordon was sent to the floor with a yell of pain. Scott barely had time to react before the hammer was sent down into Gordon's arms.

Gordon cried at the repeated hits and Scott had to squeeze his eyes shut, unable to see the pain he was causing his brother. But that still didn't make hearing it any better.

One terrible scream had Scott's eyes flying open, protective instincts kicking in and making him find out what was wrong,

The hammer had been spun around so that instead of the head, Gordon had been hit by the claw of the hammer instead. The pointed edges had been driven into his side, and Scott watched in agony as they were slowly pulled out.

He prayed that as the ends were not made for impaling, they wouldn't have been driven in too deeply. Otherwise, his brother might bleed out right in front of him.

Scott watched as blood seeped out of the wound, but thankfully it appeared to be slow and sluggish. It must have still been painful, and Scott winced as Gordon whimpered on the floor.

The man straightened, letting the arm that was holding the hammer hang by his side. Blood dripped from the tip. Gordon's blood.

"Remember, you can make this all stop." He was staring right at Scott, and he smiled at the look that was on Scott's face.

Scott wasn't sure how he looked, but he could feel the wetness on his cheeks. He hadn't even realised he'd been crying.

"Take him back to his room," the man said without turning around.

The other men roughly picked Gordon up from the floor. Gordon could barely stand on his own, and was practically dragged out of the room, not even struggling.

Scott was expecting the other man to follow, but he stayed where he was.

"Hold on." The man stopped one of the others with a grip on his arm. The other man halted in his tracks as he turned to his leader.

"Take this." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a knife in a sheath. "Have a little fun."

Scott's blood ran cold as a wide grin appeared on the larger man's face.

"Yes, boss." He took the offered knife and then left the room. The door closed behind him and Scott's view of Gordon was gone.

"Please, don't hurt him," Scott begged the remaining man.

"Just answer the questions, and you can make it all stop."

"I won't," Scott growled, angry that this man was putting him in this position. His heart ached for his brother. Scott had no idea what was about to happen to him, and Scott wasn't there for him.

A heart shattering scream rang from down the hallway, and Scott instinctively started to struggle against the ropes, his need to be with his brother taking over his logic that he couldn't actually _move_.

"Do you need me to go over the question-"

"No." Scott's eyes were closed again, even though it was pointless. He could still hear his brother's screams echo from somewhere else in the building.

He wanted to put his hands over his ears, but he was sort of glad for the ropes preventing him from doing so. He deserved to hear the pain he was putting his brother through. It was his fault. Gordon couldn't get out of it, so neither should Scott.

"Please-" Scott's voice cracked as another pained scream could be heard. "I'll do anything if you stop."

The man slowly walked over to stand right in front of Scott's chair, looming over him. "But you won't give me the information I want."

"I can't." Scott couldn't stop the sobs that escaped him. It seemed that without Gordon in the room, Scott's resolve was starting to crack. "Anything but that."

"Any why not?" The man's hands were behind his back and he leant down so that his face was inches away from Scott's. There was a hint of impatience in his voice.

Scott couldn't bring himself to answer. Whether that be because he feared answering any more questions would result in him slipping up and giving away an answer he shouldn't spill. Or maybe it was because at this point, he didn't know if the answer was worth it anymore.

The other man watched him for a long moment. Scott just found enough strength to look at him in the eye, until another sound from down the hallway had him flinching away.

The man had the nerve to chuckle, before he moved away and started to walk back and forth in front of Scott.

"You know, Scott Tracy." Scott felt sick when he heard his name. It was a reminder that this man knew so much about them, and only wanted to know more. "I don't particularly enjoy getting my hands dirty. I'll do it if I have to, but most of the time I leave the dirty work to those goons." He jerked his thumb in the direction of the door. "Which means they're very experienced in ways to…get people to crack."

As if on cue, another yell could be heard, although this one sounded raspier and quieter.

"Imagine what they might be doing to him."

"Stop." Scott could feel the tears streaking down his face again at the images this man was putting into his head.

"They can get very inventive with just a knife."

"Stop!" Scott's eyes were squeezed shut again as he tried to shut the man out, but he couldn't escape his voice.

"Probably carving his pretty face as we speak. It'll be a shame to destroy it, but needs must-"

"_Stop!_" Scott yelled. His eyes were still shut, but tears pooled down his cheeks.

Scott only just realised that it had gotten eerily quiet. He slowly peeled his eyes open to see the other man was watching the door over his shoulder.

He turned back to face Scott with a smile.

"Just something to think about."

Without another word, he turned and left, and Scott was on his own once more.

* * *

Time passed excruciatingly slow for Scott. He was left on his own, with his own thoughts, for what must have been hours.

He was left to imagine what could have happened to his brother that caused him such pain. What was worse were the thoughts about why those cries of pain had stopped.

Had they finally left Gordon alone? Or had he passed out from the pain? Or maybe it was worse.

The logical part of Scott's brain told him that it wouldn't be as bad as he was imagining it to be, that he was only being left to stew on his own so that he could suffer alone with his thoughts.

But the older brother side of him, that part that told him to protect younger brothers no matter the cost, kept panicking with the possibility that the worse case scenario _could_ still be true. It was agony waiting to see Gordon again.

He'd been unconsciously struggling against his ropes as he waited. His wrists were starting to burn under the rough material and his skin was likely shredded, but he didn't even realise. His mind was just on _Gordon_.

He wasn't sure how long he had been in that room for. Even if he could work out the hours that he had been conscious, he had no idea how long he had been out for before he woke up. It could have been a day, maybe more, maybe less, but it must have been long enough for the rest of his family to realise they were missing.

Scott had no idea who these people were, and if his family or the GDF couldn't work it out either, then their chances of getting out of there were slim. However, Scott still made a promise that if no one came for them, he would find a way to get Gordon out of there. It was the least he could do for his little brother after all he'd put him through.

He just wasn't sure how long he could hold out.

He was jolted from his thoughts when he heard footsteps just outside his door. His heart hammered at the thought of what was in store next, but also at the possibility of seeing Gordon again. He wanted to see him, but also didn't want to know what they had been doing to him, in case it was worse than what he had been imagining.

The door swung open with a creak and Gordon was thrown at Scott's feet.

"Gordon!" Scott cried as the sight of his brother. "Are you alright?"

Gordon groaned and mumbled something incoherent through the gag, and he tried to push himself up onto his knees, although his arms were shaky, and he appeared weaker than before.

Scott tried to hold in the gasp that threatened to escape at the sight of his brother.

There were deep, long cuts across his arms and legs. Scott couldn't tell if they were still bleeding from where he sat, but his suit was covered in blood already, and he wouldn't be able to see if there were any hidden injuries beneath the suit.

The same group of men as always stepped up behind Gordon's slumped form.

Before the door could close or Scott could process what was happening, one of the larger henchmen grabbed Gordon by his hair and pulled him upright. Gordon almost fell backwards under the shock and force, but the grip kept him in place.

"Scott Tracy." The leader stepped forward, so he was next to Gordon, and that was when Scott realised that this man always referred to him with his full name. Probably to rub in the fact that he already knew a lot about them. "I'm getting a little impatient, which I don't like to be, and I don't think you will like it either."

The man who had a hold of Gordon reached forward to grab his hands that were tied together and lifted them above his head. Gordon didn't even put up a fight or struggle away, and Scott noticed that his eyes were struggling to stay open, which alarmed Scott even more.

However, his eyes flew open along with a chocked scream when the man grabbed a couple of his fingers and snapped them back.

The sounds of bones cracking had Scott feeling queasy, despite the fact that he had heard much worse and built up a strong stomach against that sort of thing over the years. He was thankful that he hadn't eaten in hours, or he was sure he would have thrown up all over himself by this point.

"Please, just stop," Scott begged.

"You know saying that won't make me stop. If anything, it'll just motivate me to keep going."

Gordon was thrown onto the floor again, and he curled himself around his injured hand. Scott was filled with guilt as he watched him, knowing that it was his fault that Gordon was hurt and he had the power to stop it. He just didn't know if he could betray his whole family and his father's legacy when he'd already betrayed one brother.

Scott's eyes darted way from Gordon when the large man stepped around his little brother and grabbed his hair again.

He began to lift Gordon up again, but this time, instead of lifting him to sit up again, he only lifted Gordon about a foot from the ground before he slammed the side of his face into the hard floor.

Scott gasped at the loud bang the impact made and his eyes widened when the man didn't even hesitate to send Gordon's head towards the ground a second time.

The second time was worse. Blood already pooled down the side of Gordon's face from the crack just below his hairline, and there was a splatter of it on the ground. Gordon's limbs seemed to go limp and he barely moved. The only thing that indicated he was still conscious was his half-lidded eyes.

The man went to lift him again, but Scott could no longer watch this happen.

"Stop! You'll kill him!" Scott yelled to either the man in charge or the man hurting his brother, he wasn't sure.

The man crouching over Gordon hesitated as he turned to his boss, and Scott's gaze followed his.

The leader appeared to think about that for a moment, but Scott knew he'd already made his mind up as only a second later he replied.

"If that's what it takes." He shrugged. "This whole thing hasn't been as successful as I thought it would be. It thought you'd have cracked a lot sooner. So, maybe I need to try something else. At least this way I don't have to worry about _two_ prisoners."

He gestured for the other man to continue, but Scott wouldn't allow it. The only hope that had kept him going was that Gordon was incentive for _him_, which meant that they would at least keep him alive. It would be much harder to forgive himself if he let a brother die than if he spilled information.

"Wait!" Scott shouted again at the other men. They all turned to look at him with curiosity, but Scott looked down at his knees in shame. "I-I'll talk."

He looked up as he heard a chuckle, and he found that the leader was sporting a wide grin on his face.

"Excellent. Now, give me the schematics for the Thunderbirds."

Scott opened his mouth to speak, but then he hesitated.

"I can't."

The other man's face instantly fell, and he didn't hesitate to turn to the other man.

"Kill him."

The man nodded and grabbed Gordon again, this time with a much tighter grip.

"No, wait. I literally _can't_." Scott struggled against the ropes, his need to get to his brother tenfold. "They're all saved onto International Rescue's database; I don't just have them on me."

"Then tell me how to hack into the system." Scott was thankful that the other man had released his grip on Gordon. Maybe he could stall them until he thought of something.

"It's impossible to hack into. It's all on its own server. Even if you did manage to get into it remotely, the system would know you were there and would wipe everything on it."

"So, tell me where International Rescue's hideout is so I can get access to it from there."

Scott knew that he could only keep the truth up for so long before he ran into a wall that would cause him to either lie or reveal something he didn't want to.

"I…can't," he repeated once more.

The man narrowed his eyes at him. "I don't think you know the difference between _can't_ and _won't_, Scott Tracy. Now, stop wasting my time if you're not going to be helpful."

He turned towards the door and stepped towards it, but not before addressing the henchmen. "Be sure to finish him in a way I would approve of, and make sure the other one's watching."

He reached for the door handle, but as soon as he touched it, there was a loud noise that came from somewhere in the building.

The man turned around to look at them, and Scott could see the confusion on his face. There was another loud noise, and he turned to face his men.

"Take Gordon back to his room. I'll handle this."

The two goons picked Gordon up from the floor and dragged him out of the room, his body unresponsive.

"What's happening?" Scott asked, confused at the abrupt change in plan and strange noises, but they all left without paying him any attention.

The door slammed shut, and he was alone once again. He was left to wonder what was going on, but whatever it was, it probably just saved Gordon's life.

The loud sounds came back again, but this time they were more frequent and seemed to be closer. Scott had no idea what the cause of them was, but it was clear some sort of commotion was happening out there.

Then, almost as abruptly as it had started, the noises stopped, and he was left in an eerie silence.

* * *

Standing outside the building whilst he waited for the GDF to do their thing was probably the most excruciating thing about this ordeal so far. His brothers were inside that building, he knew they were, and he wanted nothing more than to burst in there and get them.

When they were given the all clear, Virgil practically sprinted inside. He barely paid any mind to the GDF personnel who were in the building, only acknowledging one of them when they told him they'd found the location of one of his brothers.

Virgil stepped into the room and couldn't hold back the gasp that escaped him when he laid eyes on the sight before him.

"Gordon!" Virgil hurried over to his brother's side.

Gordon's eyes were closed, and he didn't appear to have heard Virgil. There was blood down one side of his face and bruises on the other. His suit was also coated in blood and Virgil was scared to find out what injuries laid beneath it that he couldn't see.

There was a gag in his mouth and Virgil reached forward to untie it.

The movement seemed to have woken Gordon, and he groaned as his eyes fluttered open.

"Gordon?" Virgil gently put his hand on Gordon's cheek to try and coax Gordon's eyes to open further.

However, Gordon flinched away from the touch. He tried to push himself away from Virgil, but a wince stilled the movements.

"Gordon, it's alright. It's just me," he said reassuringly and moved slightly back so Gordon didn't feel crowded.

Gordon blinked a few times at Virgil before he relaxed slightly.

"Virg?" His voice sounded croaky and rough, and that was when Virgil noticed the red, almost burnt-looking skin around his neck.

"Yeah, it's me. Don't talk, alright?" I'm going to get you out of here."

Virgil got to untying the ropes around Gordon's wrists now that he was sure his brother wouldn't mistake him for someone else and start to get scared again.

It appeared that Gordon had tried to struggle out of the ropes, as his suit around his wrists was torn up slightly, but thankfully it had protected his skin from getting damaged as well.

When that was done, he pulled out the stretcher he had brought with him.

"Hey, Gordon?" Virgil looked back up at his brother and found that his eyes were glazed over, and his gaze seemed unfocused. "Gordon?"

Gordon seemed to have heard him that time and he blinked before focusing on Virgil. Virgil wouldn't have been surprised to find that his brother was concussed after seeing the gash across his forehead, but his slow responses were alarming, and he would have to run scans once they got back to Thunderbird 2.

"I'm going to put you on this stretcher and then we're going to get out of here, okay?" He tried to not let his worry show in his voice, and instead put on a brave smile that he saved for rescues. Usually his brothers saw right through it, but it seemed to please Gordon for now.

Gordon gave him a small nod, and Virgil began to gently coax him to lay down on the stretcher. Virgil had just gotten Gordon onto it and was about to strap him down, but then Gordon latched onto Virgil's arm.

"Wha' 'bout Scott?" He croaked out, despite Virgil's command to save his voice.

That reminded Virgil that he had yet to inform Kayo that he had found Gordon, although he was sure that she knew by now anyway. He didn't know if she had reached Scott yet, so he opened his comm link.

"Hey, Kayo. I've got Gordon, he's safe. You got Scott yet?"

* * *

"I've got him, Virgil. We'll meet you outside soon."

Scott watched as Kayo closed the comms and stepped around him and out of view to untie his wrists. He finally relaxed now that he knew that Gordon was safe. Virgil would take care of him. He would do a much better job than Scott.

When Scott felt his arms get released, he slowly pulled them forward, his muscles aching after being in the same position for so long. He inspected his sore wrists and found that he must have been struggling against the binds much more than he thought, as his suit was torn and the skin beneath it was red and bleeding in some places.

"How did you find us?" Scott asked as Kayo came to crouch down in front of him and got to untying his ankles from the chair legs. He recalled seeing her burst through the door several minutes after the loud noises went silent, relief filling him that his family came for them.

"There was a CCTV camera on one of the buildings that remained intact after the earthquake. It just about caught the back of the van that they took you guys in, including the license plate." She moved from one leg to the other. "Wasn't too difficult for the GDF to trace down the owner and then track this place down."

"How long have we been gone?"

"About a day." Kayo looked up as she finished with the last of the rope and smiled at the raised eyebrow Scott was giving her. He thought it hadn't been that long, but he hadn't been expecting anyone to find them so quickly. "Yeah, they were really sloppy."

They hadn't seemed it when beating Gordon right in front of him.

The thought of his brother urged Scott to get out of his seat and go find him. He went to stand up, but Kayo put her hand on his shoulder to keep him down.

"Whoa, Scott. Take it easy. Let me check you over first." Kayo looked concerned as she stood over him, her hand still on his shoulder, comforting.

"I'm fine." Scott brushed her off as he went to stand again. "They didn't touch me."

This time she let him past. He stumbled slightly when he stood, whether it was from sitting down for too long or dehydration, he didn't know, but he pushed the dizziness away and made for the door to find his little brother.

* * *

They rode in Thunderbird 2 to the closest hospital, where they stayed for only a few days before heading back to the Island, where they had enough medical equipment, should they need it.

During their stay at the hospital, Scott mostly stayed right next to Gordon's bed, watching his brother as he slept curled up on his side.

The rest of his family kept on trying to get him to rest, but he couldn't with the guilt that was running through his head. The least he could do was sit by his brother's side and make sure he was safe.

When Gordon was deemed fit enough to leave, they all went back to the island, and although Scott couldn't be removed from Gordon's side at the hospital, now Scott couldn't find it in himself to face him.

* * *

Gordon had been holed up in his room for the past few days. He had made a deal with Virgil that in return for getting to stay in his room, rather than the infirmary, he would need to stay in bed. Gordon had complied, but now he was getting restless.

Gordon opened his bedroom door and peered out into the dim, quiet hallway. Everyone was likely in bed, so Gordon began his slow limp down the stairs.

He had waited until the night for a number of reasons, namely because there was less of a chance of him being caught outside his room and not in bed like he was told to be. It was also because he knew there would less light to give him a headache, which his concussed head did not need right now. Not only that, he knew he would find the one person he was looking for still wide awake.

He hobbled into the kitchen, and just as he'd thought, he found Scott standing over the coffee pot, waiting for it to brew.

Gordon stumbled off the final step, and that was when Scott finally realised he was there.

"Gordon?" Scott looked concerned as he turned to him. He also looked tired and there were bags under his eyes. "You should be in bed."

"So should you." Gordon sent him his own concerned look as he sat down in one of the stools at the table, supressing a wince as he did so as he knew it wouldn't make Scott feel any better.

Scott didn't reply to that, instead turning back to the coffee pot.

"Why are you avoiding me?" Gordon asked quietly.

Scott turned back around, his eyes wide and he finally stepped away from the pot.

"I'm not avoiding you."

"Then why haven't I seen you since we got back home? I remember you always being there at the hospital."

Scott looked down at the floor, appearing more guilty than he had before, if that was possible.

"I'm sorry."

Gordon was expecting that to come at some point, but it still surprised him.

"What? Why?"

"It's my fault you got hurt."

"Actually, I think it was more those other guys that hurt me, but-" He paused when he realised that wasn't going to make Scott feel any better.

Gordon slipped off the stool and walked over to his brother, even though standing hurt.

"It's not your fault, Scott. You did what you had to do. I don't blame you for that."

"Well you should." Scott finally looked back up at Gordon again, and Gordon could see the beginnings of tears in his eyes. "I certainly do."

Gordon paused as he tried to find a way to get through to his brother.

"Dad would be saying the same thing as I am now. We all knew the possibility of something happening, and we all prepared for it. We wouldn't have signed up for this if we weren't willing to take the consequences."

Scott's face shifted slightly, and Gordon thought that he might have gotten through to him, but then he turned away again.

"You don't understand."

"I understand more than anyone!" Gordon put his non-broken hand on Scott's arm to get his brother to face him again, even though the movement still sent shards of pain through the appendage. "Do you think I liked being the cause of _your_ pain? I almost spoke just so I didn't have to see you be tortured just because of _me_.

Scott obviously hadn't been expecting that, clearly now only just realising that Gordon was going through the same thing as him.

"I'm sorry." Scott repeated, although this time he didn't appear quite so sullen. "I didn't know. I just thought that if I spoke, you would have been saved from getting so hurt."

Gordon could see he was looking at the bandage on Gordon's forehead, and he was glad that he had decided to throw on a hoodie before coming down here, which hid the bandages down his arms and saved Scott from further guilt he shouldn't be feeling.

"Let's be honest, if you _had_ given those idiots any information, I would be way more mad at you." He flashed Scott a smile and was very pleased to see that after a moment, Scott sent him a small one back. "Now, will you finally go back to bed?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "Thanks, Gordon."

"No problem!" Gordon made to leave, but then stopped as he realised the task before him. "Could you carry me back up? I don't think I can face all those stairs again right now."

"Of course." Scott crouched down in front of Gordon so Gordon could climb onto his back.

Gordon climbed on with a grin, happy that he managed to make his brother feel better. Scott was glad that he had something to do to help his brother, and that he could finally sleep without his own demons keeping him up at night. He carried Gordon back up the stairs, with Gordon resting his head on his shoulder, and left the coffee pot where he'd left it, forgotten.


	4. Worked Themselves to Exhaustion

_Scott + Worked Themselves to Exhaustion_

* * *

Virgil yawned as he stumbled down the stairs, practically still half asleep. He wanted to be in bed, but he had woken up with a really dry mouth and couldn't get back to sleep until he'd sorted it out.

He reached the bottom step that lead to their bedrooms and went to make his way down the steps into the kitchen, but something from the living room stopped him in his tracks.

There was a light still on, and when Virgil stepped further into the room, he found his oldest brother sat in the middle of it.

Scott was hunched over their father's desk, the holo-screen up in front of him as he read through reports.

"What are you still doing up?" Virgil's voice was gravelly with sleep and a dryness that he still needed to quench.

Scott visibly jumped in his seat and quickly looked up at Virgil. Clearly, he had not noticed his brother approaching, which was concerning.

"Just finishing up these reports, I'll go to bed soon," Scott turned back towards the screen. The bluish tinge that the light sent across his face highlighted the dark bags beneath his eyes. The empty coffee cup next to him did not go unmissed.

"Didn't you say that when we all went to bed?" Virgil walked closer to the desk and peered at the screen. Virgil recognised it as a rescue that took place almost a week ago.

"Mmhmm," Scott hummed in confirmation, his eyes not straying from the report.

"Scott, that was five hours ago."

Scott stilled at that and turned back to Virgil.

"Has it really been that long?" He frowned.

"Yeah, now go to bed. The rest of these can wait until the morning." Virgil knew his brother wasn't going to go so easily, so he pulled Scott's chair away from the desk.

"These should really get done now, though, or I'll just get behind again. I'll be done soon anyway." He tried to pull his chair back towards the desk, but Virgil wasn't having any of it. He spun the chair around so that Scott had his back to the screen and was facing Virgil.

"There's at least five more rescues since that one left to do." Virgil pointed at the report that sat half complete. "That's too many for you to do right now."

"But-"

"No, Scott." Virgil kept one hand gripped onto the back of Scott's chair to keep him in place. "What if Thunderbird 1 gets called out on a rescue tomorrow? You can't go if you haven't slept all night."

Scott slumped slightly, knowing that Virgil was right, but he was stubborn, and wouldn't give in so easily.

"Someone has to do these, Virgil." He looked up at Virgil and even in this light, Virgil could see just how exhausted he was. There were creases around his eyes built from worry and stress, and Virgil wondered why he hadn't noticed how bad it was before.

"But you don't have to do them all by yourself." Virgil let go of the chair and stood up straight. He knew that despite Scott's words, he was getting through to his brother.

Scott was quiet for a moment before he spoke again, his voice unusually quiet. "Dad did."

So that's what this was all about. Virgil could've kicked himself for not realising it sooner.

"But you're not dad, Scott. You don't need to do all this by yourself. There's no shame in asking for help when you need it."

"But if he could do it, then why can't I?" Scott finally stood up from the chair. "I just don't want to fail him."

Virgil was taken aback by that.

"Fail him? Scott, he couldn't be prouder of you. You've done so much to keep this all going." Virgil didn't just mean International Rescue, but also their family. "But you don't need to carry it all on your own shoulders. We're all here to help."

Virgil waited until Scott finally gave him a shaky nod and a small smile.

"You're right. He wouldn't like to see us end up like this." He yawned now that he'd allowed himself to relax, and somehow, he looked more tired than before. "Thank you, Virgil."

"It's what I'm here for." He shrugged with a laugh. "Now, go to bed."

Virgil ushered Scott back up the stairs, and this time his brother didn't protest. He ensured that Scott actually made it all the way to his bed, his quest for a glass of water forgotten by that point. When he was sure that Scott was asleep, Virgil headed back for his own bed, already planning on how he could get those reports completed before Scott woke up again.


	5. Over-the-Shoulder Carry

_Gordon & Virgil + Over-the-Shoulder Carry_

* * *

Gordon groaned as he tried to shift himself into a better position.

"This is really uncomfortable."

"Yeah? More uncomfortable than walking on a broken leg?" He could feel more than hear his brother chuckle.

"Maybe you have a point." Gordon propped himself up on his brother's back so he could see their surroundings a bit better. "I just never realised how bony your shoulders were."

"Says the idiot who fell out of a tree." He could practically see the smirk that would be on Virgil's face.

"Hey, I did not fall _out_ of the tree. The tree broke with me in it." Gordon grimaced at the memory. He really thought he'd get a better vantage point of the area by climbing up that thing. He just didn't think that it would be weakened enough by the nearby earthquake to break under his weight.

"I thought being short would make you light anyway," Virgil quipped, sounding thoughtful.

Gordon glared at the back of his brother. "Like you would know what it's like to be light."

Pain flared in Gordon's leg as he was jostled on his brother's shoulder.

"Hey!"

"Sorry, just moving you into a more comfortable position." Virgil laughed as Gordon grumbled, not appreciating his brother's sarcasm.

They settled into a silence and Gordon watched the trees go by as they walked through the forest, trying to ignore the pain that he still felt in his leg. He groaned as a thought passed through his mind.

"What is it now?"

"Scott's gonna kill me for falling out of a tree." Gordon could already picture the look on his brother's face when he learns that Gordon's put himself out of action for something so stupid.

"So, you do admit you fell out of it." If Virgil wasn't smirking before, then he definitely was now.

"Shut up," Gordon groaned again as he slumped against his brother's back and let his arms go limp, no longer having the energy to keep himself up.

Virgil chuckled again. "I think you'll be fine. He'll be more concerned about making sure you're okay."

"I hope you're right," Gordon replied, but then he noticed that the trees had stopped moving, which meant that Virgil had stopped walking. He pushed himself up again to try and look around. "Why did you stop?"

Virgil was silent for a moment, before he said quietly, "I think I'm lost."

Gordon couldn't help the laugh that escaped him. "Who's the idiot now?"

"Shut up," Virgil grumbled. "Or I'm making you walk."


	6. Buried in Rubble

_All the Bros + Buried in Rubble_

_This was inspired by this prompt by whumpster-dumpster over on tumblr: The team is in a big collapse (a cave-in, a fallen building, whatever) and Team Leader is pinned down by debris, barely able to breathe, much less help any of their team. All they can do is try to stifle the rising panic as they listen to them screaming or crying somewhere in the dark. But what about the ones that have gone silent? What's happened to them?_

* * *

Scott woke to coughing, and it took him a moment to realise that the person who was coughing was _him_.

It hurt. There was a weight on his chest that felt heavier each time he hacked the air from his lungs.

He rasped in a breath as he tried to clear his head, but he couldn't remember anything beyond waking up just now.

His mouth was dry and filled with the taste of dust on his tongue. He swallowed and tried to moisten his throat again, but the taste still lingered.

He coughed again as he tried to take in his surroundings and remind himself with what had happened. It was dark, so he couldn't tell where he was, but as he cast his gaze to the right, he saw a small light shining out from beneath some rubble.

Rubble. Right, that's what Scott was trapped beneath. So now the question was, what exactly was this rubble from.

Deciding that Scott wasn't going to put the pieces together as to where he was right now, he instead moved onto another important point, and started to take stock of his injuries.

Everything hurt, which didn't help. He most likely had a broken rib or two by how much it hurt to breathe. His head was pounding, and his memory loss indicated that he was probably concussed. Which was just going to make this a whole lot worse.

He knew that from the chest down, he was trapped. He could wiggle his feet, but other than that, his movement was restricted. He couldn't move around to feel if anything hurt in particular, but he was at least ninety percent sure that something was up with his wrist.

He stilled as he heard a groan come from not too far away.

"Hello?" Scott's voice was barely audible, and he was sure that it was less of a word and more of a croak that came out of his mouth. He cleared his throat as best he could and tried again. "Hello?"

"Scott?" It was quiet, but he would know that voice anywhere.

"Alan!" Scott called out to his brother. He didn't know whether he should be thankful that he wasn't alone, or scared that his littlest brother was here in this situation with him. "Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

"I-I think so." Alan's reply sounded like he was trying to sound brave even though he was in pain, which just sent alarm bells through Scott.

Scott's heart hammered in his chest at the response. "What hurts? Can you move?"

If he could move, he might be able to help Scott get free, but Scott didn't want to make him if he was injured.

"No. My leg is stuck. I think it might be broken, or bleeding. Or both, I can't really see."

So that was a no for Scott getting free, although now he wanted to be free more than ever.

"Don't worry, Alan. We'll get out of here soon, just don't move, okay?"

"Okay." Alan's voice was small and quiet.

"Do you remember what happened?" Maybe if Alan could remember, they would have a better chance to get out of there.

"Um, we were headed to a rescue, I think it was, uh, an earthquake? But then, I'm pretty sure, an aftershock hit us. And that's the last thing I remember." He paused, but then his voice came back sounding more hysteric than before. "I'm sorry, Scott. I can't quite remember."

"No, Alan, it's alright. You did great," Scott tried to reassure him, but even he wasn't too convinced of how reassuring he came off, not when he was at a complete loss at what to do.

By the sounds of Alan's voice, it seemed that his brother was somewhere close to Scott's feet, to the left a bit. Scott was prevented from sitting up to see if he could find him. And even if he could, there was probably a wall of debris between them.

"Alan?" Scott waited for a confirmation from his brother that he'd heard him before he continued. He heard a small groan in response. "Do you remember if there was anyone else with us? Or was it just us two?"

If Scott only had to worry about one brother, then that would be manageable. They could find a way to get the rest of their brothers to help them out of here. But if more of them were here, if they were all trapped and injured, not only was this going to be _a lot_ harder, their silence so far was concerning.

"Hmm, I think maybe there was?" Alan broke off with another moan. "I'm s-sorry, Scott. I can't really think. It h-hurts."

In the short time he had been speaking to Alan, his little brother sounded more distressed, and Scott suspected he was downplaying how much pain he was in.

Scott went to reply but was cut off by the sudden noises coming from his right. Scott strained his neck to see what the source of the noise was and found that the single source of light beneath the rubble he'd seen before was shifting.

It was accompanied by a groan and then a moment later, a hand appeared out from the rubble.

Scott waited with bated breath as the person slowly rose out of the rubble, and then a head emerged.

A tuff of black hair covered in dust and grime, atop a head that looked around in confusion until it finally turned towards Scott, and Scott saw that it was Virgil.

Virgil's face was covered in just as much dirt as the rest of him. However, one side of his face was covered in blood that appeared to stem from a gash along his hairline. The torch on his shoulder was still on, which Scott realised was the source of the light he'd seen before, and it was the only thing providing light now. However, it didn't help Scott see more than just debris around him.

Virgil blinked a few times at Scott, before recognition seemed to dawn.

"'cott?"

"Yeah, it's me. And Al." Scott tried to point his head in the direction of their little brother and hoped that it was enough to indicate where he was. It seemed to work, though, as Virgil turned his gaze in that direction.

"Alan! Are you alright?" Scott knew Virgil also wouldn't be able to resist making sure their youngest brother was fine before doing anything else.

"Yeah, I'll live." Scott also knew that Alan was trying to make his injuries seem not as bad as they were, to not worry older brothers more than he should. Although, so far that wasn't working on Scott.

"Virgil, are _you_ hurt?" Scott was concerned about the cut on his head, but Virgil was sitting up and seemed to be free to move about, so that would hopefully mean his injuries were limited.

Scott was also somewhat relieved to see Virgil. Alan seemed to remember that someone else was here with them, and that person appeared to be Virgil. Scott hoped that was all, because he didn't know if he could take worrying about more brothers.

"Just a splitting headache." Virgil squeezed his eyes shut and raised a hand gingerly towards his head wound. He winced as he touched the area. "Other than that, I think I'm alright."

Virgil slowly peeled his eyes open and looked over at Scott, sending him his own concerned look that Scott was sure he was wearing himself. "What about you?"

"Just stuck." Scott pushed his own potential injuries aside, more concerned about the wellbeing of his brothers.

Virgil didn't look entirely convinced that that was all. "Maybe I can help." He went to stand up, but immediately fell back down. His hand went to his head as his eyes closed again.

"Virg?" Scott instinctively moved towards his brother but was prevented by the rubble he was still beneath.

"Just…moved too fast." His eyes were still squeezed shut. "Perhaps moving is not a great idea."

"Just stay still. I'll get out if here." Somehow, Scott felt like he was repeating himself, reassuring Virgil just like he had done Alan. Virgil seemed to listen to him as he didn't move to get up again.

However, instead Virgil began to look around at his surroundings, and a frown appeared on his face.

"Scott? Where's John and Gordon?"

"What?" Scott's eyes widened and his breathing stopped at the question.

"All of us came on this rescue, don't you remember? Have you not heard from them?"

Scott couldn't speak, his heart was racing. If John and Gordon were here, why hadn't they shown up or contacted them? Were they hurt, or unconscious?

Scott's silence seemed to answer Virgil's question, and Virgil quickly raised his wrist comm closer to his mouth.

"John? Gordon?" Nothing. They even tried calling out to them in case they were close by, but they were still met with silence.

"I have to look for them."

"Virgil, wait!" Scott tried to stop his brother from standing up again, but Virgil still moved before he heard Scott's warning. He stumbled again as he tried to stand and ended up falling back down again. "Virgil, you're in no condition to go searching for them."

Scott so desperately wished he could get free to stop Virgil from hurting himself further, but also so he could go look for their missing brothers himself. He understood Virgil's desperation to find them, because if it wasn't for the debris keeping him down, Scott would already be up and searching through the rubble with his bare hands.

"What do we do, Scott?"

Scott didn't know how to answer that, but thankfully he didn't have to, as a moment later, several more lights broke through the darkness.

"Anybody need any help?" A stranger's voice spoke up, and a second later a fireman stepped into Scott's line of sight.

Scott felt himself relax as the small group got to work on getting them out. Scott and Virgil didn't hesitate on informing them about their missing brothers. A few of them went off to look for them whilst the rest helped the three of them out.

Scott was freed in no time. However, his thoughts were entirely on making sure the rest of his brothers were alright. As soon as he was free to move, he was up, ignoring the pain moving caused.

However, he couldn't ignore the dizziness that came with standing up, and as soon as he was up, he felt himself fall back down as darkness consumed him.

* * *

Scott woke up in the hospital, however long later. He'd ended up with a broken wrist, two broken ribs and a concussion. Because of his concussion, he had to stay in his bed longer than he would have liked, but as soon as he was free, he went searching for his brothers.

Virgil also got discharged the same time as Scott, sporting a killer headache and some impressive bruises, but other than that, he was unharmed. Alan also got out relatively unscathed, other than his broken leg. For all three of them, it could have been a lot worse.

Scott's main concern was Gordon and John, who both still had yet to wake up. Scott had managed to get them to be in the same hospital room, so he could sit in between their beds and watch them both for any signs that they were going to wake up.

They both had been impaled by the debris, not too far off from the rest of their brothers, so it didn't take the firefighters long to find them buried beneath the rubble. Scott was thankful that they had been found when they did. He had no idea what would have happened if the firefighters hadn't shown up.

Alan and Virgil were also in the room with him, but they had both fallen asleep in their chairs. Scott refused to let himself sleep, even though the tiredness was pulling at his eyelids.

He couldn't let himself rest, not until he was sure all his brothers were safe and free from harm. So, until he saw both sets of eyes in front of him blink open, he would watch over them all.


	7. Slammed into a Wall

_Superhero AU! Gordon + Slammed into a Wall_

_The boys powers: Scott-Electricity, John-Telekinesis, Virgil-Super strength, Gordon-Ice, Alan-Super speed_

* * *

They were all out of the ship the second it touched the ground. His boots hit the gravel, and he stretched as he looked around at the city around them.

New York was just how he remembered it. Tall skyscrapers and bright lights. The sky was cloudy, and he was pretty sure it was going to rain soon.

However, what was out of the ordinary was that there was not a single soul on the streets. A piece of litter was blown across the vacant road in front of them, and Gordon was distinctively reminded of a tumbleweed in an empty desert.

"So, why are we here again?" Gordon asked his brothers.

Before they could answer, there was a loud crash that came from several blocks away, and the ground rumbled beneath their feet. A second later, a tall robot, almost as tall as the buildings around it, stepped out from behind a skyscraper and into their view.

"Never mind."

"Do you know where it came from?" Virgil asked from behind Gordon.

"No idea," John replied. "But apparently it's been wreaking havoc on the city."

"Alright, we can find out who's responsible for it later. For now, we need to work on taking it down." Scott came to stand in front of them. His hands were on his hips, like if anyone didn't realise he was the leader of a team of superheroes, they would after seeing that pose. "Gordon, you try to freeze its movements whilst John and I work to take it down. Virgil, Alan, you two be prepared to knock it down."

"FAB." They all replied in unison, and then they were off.

Gordon created an icy path in front of himself so he could quickly slide down the street and towards the giant robot. He could feel the wind as he whipped by, and then he saw a blur as Alan sped past.

Gordon smiled to himself, knowing that Alan would never deny the chance to race his brothers. Gordon pushed himself a little faster, not wanting to give his little brother the satisfaction of getting there first.

Gordon slid to a stop as he reached the end of the street. He hopped off his icy trail as he came to stand next to Alan.

"You took your time," Alan raised an eyebrow at him as he crossed his arms.

"Not everyone is the fastest man alive. And at least I got here before those slowpokes." Gordon pointed over his shoulder at their brothers who were still running behind them, only halfway down the street. Their powers were definitely _not_ useful when it came to getting somewhere fast.

Alan laughed as he looked over at them, and Gordon let out a chuckle too, before he sobered up and turned back to the situation at hand.

They were much closer to the robot now, practically standing beneath it. It looked much taller closer up, and they made sure to stand back from its feet, for they would be flattened like pancakes if they got underneath one.

"Time to get to work!" Gordon called with a smile. He always loved this bit.

He held his hands out, palms facing towards the big, mechanical monster in front of them, and fired.

Ice shot out from his hands and immediately hit the robot's feet, freezing it in place. Gordon kept firing, strengthening the ice and letting it grow up its legs.

The robot noticed what was happened quickly, as Gordon had halted its movements. What could only be described as a growl escaped that was likely meant to be the robot's mouth.

The robot's head bent down to search for what was responsible, and when it saw Alan and Gordon standing there, it growled again. It was accompanied by a loud cracking sound, and when Gordon looked back at the frozen feet, the ice was splitting.

"Uh, that's not meant to happen," Gordon mumbled.

"What's happening?" Scott asked from next to him. He sounded a little out of breath and there was sweat on his forehead. Any other time, Gordon would have made some joke about him being slow in his old age.

Instead, he pointed to the ice cracking as the robot broke free. Gordon tried to fire more ice at the robot before it could escape, but this time it was prepared, and the ice couldn't stop it for long before it was moving again.

"Get out of the way!" Scott yelled as the robot broke free of the final chunks of ice and stepped towards them.

This close, the steps felt like small earthquakes beneath their feet, and Gordon struggled to stay upright as he ran away from the robot as it stepped closer to them, trying to squish them like ants.

"What now?" Gordon yelled over their comms, now too far from them to speak normally.

"We keep trying to take it down!" Scott yelled back.

Once Gordon was in a safer position, slightly further from the robot than he was before, he glanced over at his oldest brother just in time to see him hold his hands out and shoot electricity blasts from them.

The sparks of electricity hit the robot in the chest. By all accounts, the robot should have been affected in some way by the electricity, it being a hunk of metal and made up of its own electrical currents. However, it didn't even flinch, no matter how much electricity bolts Scott shot at it.

"It's not working. Why isn't it working?" Gordon could practically picture the frown on Scott's face, even though he was too far to see him properly.

Scott sent another frustrated bolt at the robot, but then Gordon noticed something.

"Wait, Scott, try that again. But this time, watch exactly where you're hitting it."

Scott sent Gordon a look across the street, but he didn't question him and did as he said.

Just as the electrical bolt hit the robot's chest, Gordon saw it again. A translucent screen appeared on the metallic surface of the robot, a honeycomb pattern flashing just briefly as the electricity hit, and fading away just as quickly as it had appeared.

"There! Did you see that?"

"What was that? Some kind of shield?" Virgil asked, standing close enough to Gordon that he could hear his brother without the comm. Although, the communicator certainly helped Gordon hear over the low rumbles that echoed every time the robot moved.

"Seems like it," John agreed. "There should be a way to disable it, we just need to find out how."

"We might need to find out fast!" The alarm in Scott's voice had them all looking back up at the robot, just in time to see it drive a fist into the side of one of the buildings.

Chunks of brick and glass shattered down at them, and they all fled to avoid the falling debris.

Gordon slid on an ice path out of the way. Whilst he moved, he turned to make sure his brothers had all managed to get away and was glad to see they were not near the debris as it all crashed into the street.

The robot drew its fist back, and Gordon saw in its hand a chunk of the side of the building that it had just ripped out. He had enough time to dodge out of the way again as the robot threw the piece of wall down at them.

It was moving fast. Quickly ripping apart buildings or picking up abandoned parked cars and throwing them at the brothers.

They all fell into a rhythm that was born from years of working together. They spread out, all using their powers to distract the robot and stop it from targeting just one of them, whilst they tried to find its weakness or a way to disable the shields.

Gordon dodged past a piece of shrapnel that came barrelling towards him, but just as he did that, there was a shrieking noise coming from his left.

He turned just in time to see a bus skidding along the street on its side, heading right towards him.

Gordon held his hands out and shot ice at the bus, aiming to freeze it in its place or at least slow it down enough so it wouldn't hit him.

Although, the bus was moving at too fast a speed and Gordon couldn't fire off enough ice quick enough to slow the vehicle down.

He could feel himself begin to panic as the bus just sped through his ice like it was nothing, barely slowing down. Gordon wouldn't have time to move away before it reached him.

There was a long second where he debated whether he should either try to run away, or continue to fire ice blasts and hope for the best, before his decision was made for him.

A heavy weight hit his side and then everything blurred into one, before it all abruptly stopped as he felt himself smack into the hard gravel.

He was stunned for a moment, but then he blinked, and Alan's face was in his.

"Gordon? Are you alright? I saw you were about to get hit so I pulled you out of the way. Sorry for crashing into the ground." Alan was speaking a mile a minute and Gordon raised a hand to stop him.

"Al, it's fine. Thanks for saving me."

Gordon flashed a smile up at his brother and Alan offered one back.

He pushed himself to stand up, but as he moved his arm, a flash of pain was sent down it. He lifted the limb up, and found that when he hit the road, he must have skidded against it, as there was a long abrasion all up his arm. It stretched from his hand all the way to his elbow, and his suit was all torn to show it bleeding beneath his sleeve.

Alan winced as he saw it. "Ah, I'm really sorry. Does it hurt?"

"Nah." That wasn't quite the truth, it stung a hell of a lot, but there wasn't anything that could been done about it right then. He'd live.

Gordon pushed himself up, putting the pressure on his uninjured arm as he stood up. He could see Alan looking at him worriedly, but Gordon ignored him by bending down to brush the dirt off his suit. New York wasn't clean on the best of days, but now it was littered with shattered glass and crumbling chunks of brick and stone.

Gordon straightened and glanced back up at the robot. It was still terrorising the rest of their brothers by throwing debris at them. The ground and buildings shook when the robot lifted one of its feet and slammed it into the ground.

Gordon was worried that one of his brothers was going to not be fast enough to dodge a hit, but so far, they seemed to be doing just fine.

Gordon could see them temporarily hiding from the falling debris in a small alleyway, most likely taking a quick breather, and Gordon laughed as the robot turned in confusion, trying to find them.

But then his smile slowly fell, and was replaced with a furrowed brow as he tilted his head and took in the back of the bot.

The metal that made up the majority of the robot was of a light grey. However, on its back, there was a sizeable patch of darker grey, a rectangular shape that stretched from shoulder to shoulder.

"Hey, Alan." Gordon nudged his brother to get his attention. He pointed up at the out-of-place patch of metal. "Does that look like…"

"A panel!" Alan turned to him in excitement. "That must be where the shields can be deactivated."

Gordon grinned at the fact that his brother was thinking the same as him. But at that same moment, the robot, who had given up looking for their brothers and had instead found the two of them again, came barrelling towards them.

Alan dashed to the right and Gordon slid away on an ice path to the left of it.

"There's a panel, on its back," Gordon shouted over the comms to inform his older brothers. "I think that's how we disable the shields."

"FAB, Gordon," Scott affirmed, and Gordon skidded over to where they were hiding.

"We need to find some way to get up to it," Virgil said.

"Maybe I can wrap a rope around its legs and trip it over. Then we can easily climb up onto its back," Alan suggested as he appeared next to them a moment later.

"And where do you think we'll get a rope that long?" Gordon turned to his younger brother, a smile on his face as Alan realised he didn't have an answer for that.

"I can send Virgil up there," John piped up. "Then he can pry that panel off and deactivate the shields."

"Sounds good," Scott nodded. "You two work on getting onto its back, whilst the rest of us distract it."

They agreed to their new instructions and then dispersed. Gordon sped around the robot, firing ice at its feet and arms to try and slow its movements down. It didn't do much, but it at least distracted the bot enough for it to not notice his older brothers.

Gordon cast a glance past the robot to see Virgil and John.

Virgil was steeling himself for what was about to happen. His knees were bent and he was prepared for the next moment, when John would be sending him through the air.

Perhaps watching his brothers and not the gigantic robot in front of him was not the best idea, as Gordon missed when the machine ripped a streetlight out of the ground and began to swing it around.

Gordon only saw it a second before it reached him, too late to do anything to stop it.

It hit him straight in the chest and sent him flying off his ice path, slamming into the wall of the closest building.

* * *

Gordon slowly peeled his eyes open, his whole body aching. He was laying on the pavement at the side of the street, crumpled at the base of the building he'd just hit.

Everything hurt and he didn't think he could push himself up. He looked up at what was happening around him and found that Virgil was already on the robot's back, frantically pulling at the panel and trying to rip it off.

With his strength, it didn't take long until the piece of metal was ripped off the robot's back and sent crashing to the floor.

By this point, the robot had noticed what they were trying to do and was furiously trying to reach for Virgil and get him off its back.

Virgil clung on tightly as the robot spun quickly, trying to dislodge him.

"Is there something there for the shields?" Scott yelled up at him, and even through Gordon's comm, the words sounded muffled.

"I- think so." It sounded as if Virgil was speaking through clenched teeth, and Gordon watched as he hung from the robot with one hand, whilst the other hand reached into the exposed wires of the robot's back.

Gordon saw sparks flying and Virgil started to rip the robot apart from the inside out. However, nothing about the robot changed. It still moved quickly; its anger prominent in its movements.

But then Virgil pulled his fist back and sent it flying straight into the robot. More sparks flew, but now they were accompanied by the shield being lit up over the whole body of the robot, before the whole thing flickered out.

The robot jerked as the shields were disabled and that was what finally caused Virgil to lose his grip and be sent tumbling to the ground.

Gordon's mind screamed at him to do something. He pushed himself up on aching limbs, only managing to lift his upper body off the ground.

He reached out with his already injured arm and fired ice at the ground beneath Virgil. He stretched it up into the air until it formed a slide.

Virgil hit the top in time and slid down the ice until he reached the bottom, unscathed.

"Thanks, Gordo," Virgil said, sounding out of breath.

Gordon couldn't find the energy in him to reply and instead watched as Scott sent several bolts of electricity at the robot again.

Now that the robot didn't have its shields to protect it, the electricity attacked its body. Once Virgil was up again, he threw punches at the parts of the robot that he could reach, which were only the feet, and John threw up pieces of debris and dented the outer hull of the metal machine.

Under the assault, the robot fell to its knees, the impact making the whole ground rock.

The robot then slumped to the floor; its movements now stilled as it shut down.

And as its head hit the ground, so did Gordon's, his energy depleted now the threat was eliminated.


	8. Caught in a Storm

_All the bros + Caught in a Storm_

* * *

Gordon stretched as he emerged from the tent. The sun had barely risen on the third day of their camping trip, but the Tracy brothers were already awake and out of their sleeping bags, ready to face the day.

Gordon couldn't remember whose idea it was for the five of them to go on this camping trip. Probably their Grandma's. Tensions had been high after the numerous rescues they'd been on lately, and she knew they needed a bit of time to relax and just spend some time with each other.

Whoever it was that proposed the idea, Gordon loved them. So far, he'd been having a fantastic time. This trip reminded him of the similar trips they used to take with their dad when they were little. It was really nice to just spend some time with his brothers without rescues cutting their time short or John being far away in space. But now they were all together, and they were only halfway through their trip.

Gordon rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he walked over to the fire in the middle of their campsite, where his older brothers were already sat, staring at the water boiling in the pot.

"Coffee?" Virgil asked as Gordon came over, he being the first to notice Gordon.

Gordon nodded as he sat down on the log next to his brother. The warmth of the fire was nice as there was still a nip in the air, the sun still not having risen all the way.

Virgil got out another enamel mug and put it with the others whilst the water still boiled. A minute later, the water was boiled and Virgil got to making them all a coffee each. He added a fifth one to the mix, and as if he could smell the instant coffee, Alan emerged from his and Gordon's shared tent.

He came to sit down next to Gordon, and Gordon laughed at his brother's bedhead. Several days in, and Alan still hadn't gotten a grasp on how to tame his sleeping bag hair.

Alan didn't seem to mind, or he was just too tired to notice.

As they sat and drank their coffee, all finally waking up fully, they got started in breakfast. Bacon was cooked up by Scott and, much to the excitement of John, was stuffed inside some bagels.

"So, what do you guys want to do today?" Scott asked before he took a big bite of his bagel.

"Oh, we could go to that lake nearby! We haven't been there yet!" Gordon was so excited at the possibility of finally going swimming, he didn't even wait to swallow his mouthful before he started speaking. He would be lucky if his brothers understood half of what he said around his food.

His brothers laughed at his enthusiasm and to the joy of Gordon, they began to discuss the idea.

"The weather's supposed to be nice today," John mused. "Would be nice to sit in the sun for a bit after that hike Virgil dragged us on yesterday."

"Hey, you all agreed to go." Despite that Virgil's words made him sound annoyed, there was a smile on his face.

"Sounds like a plan then." Scott stood up and began clearing up the plates. "Let's all get ready to go."

Gordon inwardly cheered at the plan for the day and he practically ran back to the tent to grab his swimming trunks.

He threw on a t-shirt and then shoved some stuff into his bag to take with him, including a towel and a lightweight hoodie, just in case there was a bit of a chill on his way to or from the lake.

Gordon was the first one ready. He sat on a log next to the dying fire as he waited for the rest of his brothers. They probably only took a maximum of fifteen minutes, but to Gordon it felt like forever until they finally set off towards the lake.

The lake was on the other side of the forest, only a mile away, so it didn't take them long until they reached it. But it was enough time for the sun to have fully risen and a warmth to fill the air.

The lake was beautiful. It was quite large, and to the side of it there was a cliff with a small waterfall trickling down it.

As soon as they stepped out of the shade of the trees and into the bright sun, the heat of the morning finally hit them. Gordon didn't hesitate to throw his shirt off and leap into the cool water.

* * *

They spent the whole morning at the lake, splashing about in the water, or in John's case, sitting by the shore with a book. Gordon hadn't even realised how long it had been, until he heard his stomach rumble.

"What time is it?" Gordon called over to his brothers as he looked up at the sun. It was high in the sky, so it must already be at least noon.

"Lunch time, I say," Scott replied from where he sat next to John on the shore, taking a break from the water for a bit.

Alan cheered from next to him, and Gordon chuckled. Apparently his brothers were thinking the same thing as him.

Scott started to rummage around the bags that they'd brought with them, before he turned back to them, a look of confusion on his face.

"Where's the food?"

"You didn't bring it?" Virgil started to wade through the water towards Scott.

"No, I thought one of you did." Scott stood up from the bags after they all denied bringing the food, and rubbed his forehead. "We must have left it back at the campsite."

He sighed as he turned back to his own bag and pulled out his shirt and shoes. "I'll go and get it. You guys stay here, there's no point in us all going back."

"You shouldn't go back on your own. I'll come with you," John offered as he closed his book and put it back into his bag.

Scott smiled at him, clearly happy with the company.

"We'll see you guys in a little bit." Scott slung his bag over his back. "Don't starve without us."

"Can't promise anything." Gordon called back over to him, and then they waved their brothers off as they traipsed back through the trees.

* * *

"Are they back yet?" Alan asked from where he was floating in the water on his back.

"Alan, it's only been fifteen minutes," Virgil said with a small chuckle. "They probably haven't even reached the campsite yet."

"I'm starving," Alan complained, and moved to be upright in the water again. "At this rate, I'll eat Gordon before they get back."

"Why me? If anything, Virgil will be tastier. He's got more fat on him."

At that, Gordon was met with a face full of lake water as his older brother splashed at him.

"Ugh, that went in my mouth!" Gordon's mouth hung open as he tried to will the taste of lake water out of his mouth.

Virgil laughed at his distress. Gordon could see him open his mouth to say something, but the words were cut off by the loud sound of thunder in the distance.

The three of them stilled as they heard the noise, and they all turned in the direction that it came from. It came from past the forest, in the opposite direction that their campsite was.

"Didn't John say it was just supposed to be sunny today?" Gordon asked his brothers.

"He did," Virgil confirmed. "Maybe it'll pass-"

It suddenly started to rain. Gordon would have barely realised, as he was already wet, if it wasn't for the loud patter as the droplets hit the surface of the water around him.

"I think maybe we should head back," Virgil suggested.

Gordon went to protest- they could wait out a bit of rain- but then there was another roar of thunder, followed quickly by a flash of lightning.

"I think you're right."

The three of them quickly swam towards the side of the lake and grabbed their belongings. Gordon was grateful he'd decided to bring a hoodie with him. The sun had quickly disappeared behind the clouds that had suddenly appeared, and with it the warmth in the air had gone as well. Gordon was already wet, so that didn't help with the breeze that had picked up.

They each threw on their backpacks, glad that Scott and John already took theirs so they didn't have more bags to carry, and took off into the forest and towards their campsite.

* * *

John and Scott had just reached the campsite when the thunder started.

"Was that thunder?" Scott asked as he poked his head out of the tent, the bag of food in one hand. Scott already knew what the answer to that was, he just didn't want to believe it.

"Yeah…" John was looking up at the sky in confusion. Scott followed his gaze, and saw that the once sunny sky was filled with dark clouds. "There wasn't supposed to be a storm today."

"Seems like the weather had different plans," Scott muttered as he dropped the bag and crawled out of the tent. "Think it's worth going back to the lake?"

That question was answered with the patter of rain, that was quickly followed by more thunder and lightning.

"I don't think it's worth sticking around out all."

Scott frowned as he turned back to his brother. "It's just some rain. Maybe it'll pass quickly."

"I don't think so, Scott." John was holding onto his comm that he'd brought with him, just in case. He was staring at the hologram with furrowed brow. "This is a full on storm headed towards us. If we stay, it'll destroy our whole campsite."

Scott went over to stand next to his brother and examined the hologram of the storm in front of them.

There was a little icon indicating where they were, and another to represent the storm that Scott could now see was approaching them at an alarming rate.

"Alright, you have a point. You contact the others and make sure they're on their way back. I'll start on packing all this up."

Scott turned back to the tent as John turned back to his comm. He crawled back into the tent and started to pack their stuff away. Scott shared this tent with his two immediate younger brothers. Thankfully, they all kept their belongings still in their bags to save space, so he didn't have much to pack up, only their sleeping bags.

The rain sounded much louder inside the tent, and almost drowned out the sound of John opening the tent and peering inside. John's hair was already plastered to his forehead from standing in the rain.

"They're not answering," he informed Scott. "Which either means that they're too busy swimming, or they're already on their way back. I really hope they're not reckless enough for it to be the former."

"I think even Gordon wouldn't want to swim in this," Scott laughed. He'd already stuffed one sleeping bag into its bag and had moved onto the next one.

"I hope you are right. Anyway, while you pack this up, I'll get on with Gordon and Alan's tent."

He disappeared behind the flap a moment later and Scott was left on his own again.

* * *

It didn't take Scott long to pack up all of their sleeping bags and belongings, but in that short time, the sound of the storm had picked up tremendously.

With an armful of sleeping bags and backpacks, Scott emerged out of the tent and back into the rain.

The storm had gotten stronger, and as soon as Scott stepped out of the tent, he was almost swept off his feet by the sheer force of the wind.

He stumbled over the car they'd rented to drive deep into the forest. He fished the key out of his pocket and unlocked it. Then, he threw the bags into the trunk, slamming it shut before the rain soaked everything inside.

His next task would be packing up the tent, which was not going to be easy. At this rate, as soon as he took the pegs out of the ground, the tent would take off into the trees.

John then climbed out of the other tent, holding the packed bags from Gordon and Alan's tent. He clutched onto them tightly so the wind would not rip them out of his hands, and he deposited them in the car next to where Scott put his.

"I'll help you take the tents down," he offered as he turned to Scott. He was blinking rapidly as the wind kept blowing rain right into his eyes. "The others should be back by the time we're done."

"Shouldn't they be back now?" Scott hadn't been keeping track of the time. Less time had probably passed than he thought, as the storm was growing very quickly and messed with his perspective of things, but it still felt like it had been a while since it started. "What's taking them so long."

* * *

It was only about two minutes into their trek when their walk turned into a run.

The rain was coming down really hard now, not even the trees were protecting them from the wind or the rain. They wanted to get back as quickly as possible and get out of this storm. They were already soaked though from the lake, but Gordon knew that they'd be just as wet from the rain alone if they'd been dry before, and they were freezing cold. They also were not keen on the idea of being near all of these trees if one were to get struck by lightning.

The path that they were running down was thick with trees, so they had to go single file. Virgil was at the front, with Alan behind him and Gordon at the back. The ground was already slick with mud, and so far Gordon had stumbled multiple times on the slippery dirt.

It was about a third of the way into their journey when Alan stumbled over a tree root. Gordon went to catch him before he fell, but Alan slipped on the wet mud and before any of them knew it, he was rolling down the slope and into the ditch at the side of the path.

"Alan!" Gordon and Virgil stopped still in their tracks and leant over the edge of the path, trying to not slip in either.

The ditch was only about ten or so feet below them, and at the bottom of it sat Alan.

"I'm fine." Alan was sat in a muddy puddle, covered head to toe in dirt. Gordon couldn't help but laugh at the sorry state of his brother now that he knew he was okay, but another roar of thunder reminded him of the more pressing issue at hand.

"Can you climb back up?" Virgil asked Alan.

Alan stood up and attempted to pull himself back up the slope, but he immediately fell back down.

"The ground is too wet and slippery," Alan huffed in annoyance as he once more sat in the mud.

Gordon looked around for something he could use to help his brother up. There was a small tree growing out at an angle out the top of the slope, with a branch at the perfect length for Gordon to reach.

Gordon stepped over to it and grabbed the branch. He tested the strength of it and, after deeming that it should hold his weight, he gripped onto it with one hand, whilst with the other hand he reached down towards his little brother.

"Grab my hand," he instructed Alan. He had to get as close to the ground as he could without letting go of the branch, so he could reach his brother.

Alan stood up and reached for Gordon's hand. He still couldn't quite reach, so he had to jump slightly for their fingers to finally brush against each other and for Alan's hand to finally grip onto Gordon's.

However, as soon as Gordon was pulling Alan up and both their weights were on the branch, it seemed to be too much for the branch to handle. Gordon felt himself suddenly lurch forward as the branch snapped off the tree.

There was a moment when it felt like his stomach was in his throat as he fell forward and towards Alan. But then a hand slipped around Gordon's wrist and stopped him from tumbling down the muddy slope.

He turned his head to find Virgil standing behind him, one hand grabbing onto Gordon's wrist whilst his feet were planted firmly on the ground.

"I got you."

Gordon spared him a quick smile of gratitude, before he turned back to Alan.

With Virgil's help, Gordon pulled Alan back up the slope. Alan kept a hold on Gordon's hand whilst he climbed up and out of the ditch.

As soon as Alan was at the top of the slope, Gordon stepped back to pull him over the edge.

Only for himself to stumble in the wet mud and fall flat on his back, pulling Alan down on top of him.

Virgil failed to keep in his laugh as Gordon sat up and took in his own muddy clothes.

Gordon sent a glare up at his older brother, as if it was his fault he had fallen, but in Virgil's defence, he did offer both of them a hand a moment later.

Once they were all up and made sure that Alan was in fact fine like he said, they set off again. At the rate they were going, Scott was going to go insane waiting for them, even if they only ended up being a minute late.

They hurried through the trees, albeit at a slightly slower pace than before to avoid any more slip ups. The wind rustled the trees around them, and it was hard to hear anything else. It was also hard to see, as the rain kept being whipped into Gordon's face and eyes, and he had to keep sweeping his wet hair out of his face.

This was the reason he didn't see the low branch in their path before it was too late.

Gordon was just trying to brush the hair out of his eyes when Alan ducked in front of him. Gordon barely even noticed, not until the branch Alan ducked under got caught on his backpack and was pulled along behind him. Then, the bag finally let go and the branch pinged back towards Gordon and hit him in the face.

Gordon cried out in shock and lifted his hand to his stinging lip. He pulled his fingers away and saw that amongst the dirt still on his hands, he was bleeding.

His brothers had noticed that he'd stopped after his startled cry and gave him a questioning glance.

"Are you alright?" Alan asked him, sounding concerned.

"Yeah." Gordon licked away the blood, knowing that it was nothing serious. He pushed the branch out of the way and stepped past it in annoyance. "Stupid branch."

Gordon fell into a step next to his two brothers, now that the path had widened up and allowed them to do so. They were almost back at the campsite, so they had slowed down into a walk. Gordon probably dragged his feet more than he should've, but he was already done with the day, even though it had barely gone midday, and he was ready to have a shower and sleep the rest of the day away.

* * *

Taking down the tents was just as difficult as Scott had been imagining it to be. However, he thankfully had John to help, which made the task a whole lot easier.

They started with the bigger tent. John held it down to stop it from blowing away, whilst Scott worked on taking it down. Even with John there, the tent still tried to lift off the ground and fly away.

Scott had successfully managed to take down the inner tent, although for that he was protected from the worst of the storm by the outer tent, which was what he was now trying to tackle. He was trying to take the poles out, but the guy lines he'd released from their pegs were blowing around and kept hitting him in the face.

He tried to ignore them, as in his haste he didn't have time to tie them down, but they were getting in the way. He went to bat one out of the way, but in doing so, he accidently let go of the pole he had just begun to take out of the tent.

His side of the tent was blown up without Scott holding it down, and the pole that was partially sticking out went with it and managed to poke Scott directly in the eye.

Scott stumbled back, nearly tripping over the large logs around the firepit in the process, and rubbed at his eye.

"Are you okay, Scott?" John's head popped up over the top of the tent after he heard the commotion.

"Yeah." Scott blinked, his vision was a little blurry and watery, but other than that, he was fine. "Stupid tent pole."

Scott swore he could hear John chuckle over the loud storm, and Scott couldn't help but smile.

He got back to taking the tent down and fortunately nothing else wanted to make matters worse. They eventually managed to get the tent down and fold it, although haphazardly, into its bag.

They both soon moved onto the second tent. As it was smaller, and they had learned for their mistakes on the previous tent, this one came down much faster.

They were just stuffing the tent's pieces into the bag when movement came from the trees.

Scott looked up and found his three remaining brothers emerging out of the forest and into the clearing.

Scott went to greet them, but stopped as he took in their appearances.

Alan and Gordon were both covered in mud, and Virgil wasn't far behind. They each looked miserable as they stood there.

"What happened?" Scott asked in shock. He stood up from where he had been crouched and made his way over to them as John put the tent in the trunk of the car.

"Alan fell down a hole," Gordon shrugged. Scott went to ask for more, but then Gordon continued as he took in the empty campsite. "We're leaving?"

"Do you want to stay?" Scott raised an eyebrow at him.

Gordon opened his mouth to reply, but then he seemed to come to his own realisation, as he closed it a second later.

"Guys," John called from where he was stood next to the car, and they all turned their attention to him. "If we want to leave, now would be a good time to do that."

"Right," Scott agreed.

He moved towards the car and the rest of his brothers followed. Scott got into the driver's seat, whilst John sat in the passenger's and Virgil, Gordon and Alan sat in the back. He fished the key out of his pocket again and soon started the car.

As quickly as he could, Scott drove them out of the forest, which wasn't very fast at all. The rain hammered against the windows, and the wipers couldn't move quick enough to get the water off. But Scott kept going, the fear of a tree falling on them or lightning striking them at the forefront of his mind.

Eventually, the storm began to lessen as they drove closer to the edge of the forest. It was still looming on them, threatening to follow in the same direction as them, but Scott felt it was safe to pull over for a moment.

He shut off the engine as they came to a stop on the very edge of the forest. They all sat in silence for a few moments as they collected themselves and let the adrenaline of escaping a storm wear off.

Scott was beginning to feel tired even though it was only halfway through the day, and he suspected his brothers were feeling the same way by how quiet they were being.

But then the silence was eventually broken by Alan.

"So, uh, can we get lunch now?"

And that had Scott laughing. He had already forgotten about the reason they'd headed back to the campsite in the first place.

Scott pointed out the food bag to him as he turned in his seat and took in the muddy, yet hungry, faces of his brothers.

He couldn't help but smile. Even after the events of the day, this had been one amazing trip that he wouldn't forget.


	9. Claustrophobia

_Gordon + Claustrophobia (contains spoilers for season 3)_

* * *

"Negative, Thunderbird 5. I'm gonna have to go E.V.A."

Gordon waited for a confirmation from his brother before he moved.

"FAB, Gordon," came John's reply. Gordon was already moving out of his chair before John had finished. "Please, be careful."

Gordon couldn't help but hesitate slightly at those words. He knew what they meant. He heard the extra drop of fear in John's voice. But it wasn't last time. This would not end like last time.

"When am I not careful?" Gordon quipped back, trying to lose the tension on both his own and his brother's shoulders.

It seemed to do the trick, as he heard John chuckle on the other end of the comm. That was all Gordon needed to throw his helmet on and head the rest of the way out of the sub.

He swam to the undercarriage of Thunderbird 4 and pulled out his exo-suit that was stored there, before he headed into the underwater cave.

There were a couple of divers who were supposedly trapped inside the cave. There had been a seaquake a short while ago, which had brought some of the cave down and trapped them inside. The cave was much too small for Thunderbird 4 to fit inside it, which was why Gordon was going it alone.

He could hear the _putt putt putt_ of his suit behind him as it propelled him forward.

As he got further into the cave, he pulled up the layout of the cave that his scans had picked up, and tracked the best path he could take to reach the trapped divers.

He could see two little icons that indicated their location. They were on his level, so he wouldn't need to go up or down, but he would need to take some long, narrow tunnels to reach them on the other side.

Gordon tried to stifle the rising panic that thought left with him, and instead concentrated on the cavern in front of him.

The cave was almost pitch black around him and the only light came from the one on his helmet. He had to go quite slow so that he didn't crash into a cave wall, and he kept checking the map of the cave to ensure that he was going the right way.

He felt what happened next before he heard the warning.

"Gordon! There's another seaquake headed your way."

Gordon didn't have time to tell John that yeah, he was already well aware of that. The cave shook around him and then the next thing he knew, it was coming down on him.

* * *

He was freaking out. His breathing was coming too fast but he didn't know how to slow it down.

All he could see around himself was darkness. There was a heavy weight on him that was crushing him, pressing him into the hard ground beneath him.

His mind was foggy and he couldn't _think_. All he knew was that he was trapped and he couldn't get out.

There was a sound coming from somewhere but he could barely hear it through his clouded mind. He could only think about the air being pushed out of his lungs as his mind was filled with memories of being crushed and alone and in _pain_.

Then, one thought cut through all the others.

He wasn't actually alone then, not really.

He concentrated on the noise he was hearing as he tried, and failed, to slow his breathing. The sound eventually cut through his clouded mind and he realised it was John talking to him.

"G- n? C- you… me?"

Gordon tried his best to take in a shaky breath to try and clear his mind. It caused pain to flare through his chest- whether that was phantom or real, he didn't know- but then he could hear the words a bit better.

"Gordon, answer me! Please…" Even through the fog, Gordon could hear the panic in John's voice. He tried to concentrate on that, and not the situation he was in.

"John-" His voice came out as a harsh whisper and he seemed to have lost all his breath with that one word, as he was gasping for breath again.

Fortunately, it was enough for John.

"Gordon! Are you alright?"

"I'm-" Another breath. "Stuck."

"My scans show that some of the cave collapsed, but most of it is still intact. Are you able to get out?" A pause, and then, "are you hurt?"

Gordon didn't answer and focused on the first question. Realistically, he knew he could get out of this. But the thing was, he wasn't thinking realistically or rationally. He was barely even thinking at all.

He pushed against the rocks on top of him, but they didn't budge. If anything, they felt like they were moving tighter around him.

"Gordon, what is it?" That was Virgil's voice. He was sitting up in Thunderbird 2 just above Gordon's location, likely going insane with worry.

At least he was here with him, this time. If Gordon really could not get out on his own, he would not have to wait for help that was coming from miles away.

"I can't get out." He knew his voice was shaky and told his family more about how he was feeling than he would usually admit, but he couldn't find it in himself to care.

"Son."

It was like a smooth blade that cut through his panic, that voice, that word, and suddenly everything around him seemed to clear.

"Just breathe," his dad said over the comm and Gordon did, for the first time feeling like he actually could.

He reminded himself why he could hear that voice right now. Because of last time.

He got free and he got better and then they went and got their dad back. He wasn't trapped forever.

Gordon took several more steady breaths and then he could feel himself begin to think rationally.

He still had his exo-suit on and he remembered the lasers on the end. He wasn't actually as trapped as he thought he was, and he managed to get one of his arms free.

It was an awkward angle, but he managed to cut some of the rocks on top of him in half. They fell away, and then he was able to push the rest of the rocks off of his body.

The pain he had thought he had been feeling turned into a dull ache as he sat up, indicating that this was definitely _not_ as bad as last time.

"Alright, I'm free. I'm gonna go get the divers."

His family said something in response to that, but his focus was on doing what he came here to do, so he could get out of this cave as soon as possible.

His mind was on the trapped divers who needed his help, and he tried to not think about anything else as he swam through the rest of the cave towards them.

Gordon was on autopilot as he got to the divers and directed them out of the cave. He didn't even think about the tight tunnels he had to swim through to reach them, and before he knew it, he was back in Thunderbird 4.

He sent the two divers back up in dry tubes. Gordon knew that wasn't necessary, he could have brought them up in Thunderbird 4, but he wanted to stay in his ship for a few more minutes, alone, before he went back up to the surface.

It was under the guise that he was just checking everything was alright with '4 after the other seaquake hit, but really he needed his mind to catch up with everything that had happened before he went back to a family who would be asking lots of questions.

He just needed to breathe and clear his head, and then he would go back.


	10. Trying to Wake Them Up

_Virgil & Gordon + Trying to Wake Them Up_

* * *

The first thing Gordon saw when he opened his eyes was white.

A bright whiteness that almost blinded him, like he was staring directly at the sun. He had to blink and look away so it _wouldn't_ blind him.

However, when he looked away, the next colour he saw was brown. Brown that was coming out of the white, growing downward like giant icicles. Gordon frowned as he watched it, not understanding what he was staring at.

Slowly, his vision came into focus as he blinked some more, and he could finally tell what he was looking at.

The white was snow and the brown was trees. Trees that were upside down.

Or rather, it was Gordon who was upside down.

He was hanging from one of the trees, his arms dangling next to his head that started to pound with all the blood rushing to it.

When Gordon glanced down (or was it up?) at himself, he saw that he was being held up by a helipod that had definitely seen better days.

It was stuck in the tree, with branches poking through its rotas and its robotic arm wrapped around the trunk. The shoulder restraints on Gordon's seat were still locked in place and stopped Gordon from crashing to the floor.

Gordon needed to get down, but from his position there was no way he was going to get down without crashing to the ground.

He tried anyway. He reached for some sort of purchase on the pod before he released the restraints, and despite his efforts, he tumbled straight to the ground below, head first.

If it wasn't for his helmet and the soft snow below, he probably would have ended up with a broken neck. Thankfully, Brains built their equipment to prevent such a thing. Too bad he still couldn't find a way to stop them from crashing a pod into the middle of a forest, though maybe that was a bit of a tall order.

Gordon sat up and looked around to get a better idea of where he was. All he saw was more trees and snow, until he spun around and saw the figure in green laying in the snow a short distance away.

"Virgil?"

Gordon recognised his brother instantly. He quickly crawled over the snow towards him, and as he got closer he could see that Virgil's eyes were shut.

Gordon gently rolled Virgil onto his back. His brother was unresponsive but luckily still breathing. Gordon assessed his brother for any injuries, but without the correct equipment, he couldn't see if there was anything wrong beyond the obvious. Virgil didn't appear too injured, but something was keeping his brother unconscious, and there was always the risk of internal bleeding.

"Virgil?" Gordon put his hand on Virgil's shoulder, hesitate to shake him awake and aggravate any possible injuries, but also not knowing how else to get him to wake up.

"Virg?" He tried again, but Virgil still did not respond.

Gordon lifted his watch, his next idea to call his brothers and tell them what happened, but his call to Thunderbird Five was quickly met with silence as it failed to connect.

He then remembered why they were in a snowy forest in the first place.

Gordon and Virgil had been in the middle of a mission up on a mountain. There was a snowstorm that had damaged the closest comm tower and International Rescue had gone out to fix it.

They had discussed whether it be best to wait out the storm before they headed to the site, but there were concerns about the amount of hikers that explored the mountain daily. If any of them got into trouble out in the storm, they would not be able to get any signal to contact for help.

So, Gordon and Virgil had headed to the mountain in Thunderbird Two. The tower was built in the middle of a forest, so Two would not be able to land nearby. The storm would also make it difficult to hover above the tower to fix it that way, so the two of them had landed the ship a distance away and headed to the tower in a helipod.

Gordon couldn't remember what had happened to result with the two of them in the middle of the forest with a broken pod, but it was safe to assume the storm had caused them to crash into the trees.

So now Gordon was stuck with an injured brother and no way to contact for help. Gordon couldn't help but see the irony that this was exactly what they were trying to prevent.

The only options Gordon had were to either wait for his brothers to realise they were missing, which could take a while as they were expecting to not hear from the two of them until they got the tower fixed and that would not be good for Virgil if he was seriously injured. Or he could head to the tower on foot and fix it that way.

Gordon was hesitant to leave Virgil on his own, so that would mean that Gordon would have to carry him all the way there.

He was already hefting Virgil onto his back before he'd made up his mind.

Virgil was definitely not the lightest of his brothers, but Gordon had built up an impressive upper body strength from all his years of swimming and it wasn't something he couldn't handle for at least a couple of miles.

Gordon orientated himself in the direction of where the tower was, and began the trek.

* * *

Gordon had made quick work across the forest. He hadn't slowed down yet and wasn't even tired, and the trees around them protected them from the worst of the storm.

Although, Virgil still hadn't woken up yet, which made Gordon only quicken his pace.

He had been concentrating so much on making it to the tower quickly, that he wasn't paying too much attention to where he was going. He just gave enough attention to make sure he didn't walk into any trees and that he was still going the right way.

What he had failed to notice was where he was stepping.

He was probably about halfway to the tower. Virgil had started to slip in his grip and he was just adjusting his hold on his brother, when there was all of a sudden a white hot pain in his leg.

It felt like some animal had its teeth around his whole calf and Gordon fell to the floor in shock and pain, dropping Virgil on the ground in the process.

Gordon cried in agony as the impact of hitting the ground sent another flare of pain up his whole leg.

He was almost too scared to see what had happened, but he knew he needed to know.

He slowly looked down to see the cause of his pain, and the mechanism attached to his leg.

It was a bear trap. The teeth were piercing through his suit and into his skin, and Gordon could already see and feel the blood dripping down his leg and into the snow.

Gordon began to feel queasy just looking at it and he had to glance away.

His gaze settled on Virgil, who was slumped on the ground next to him where Gordon had unceremoniously dropped him.

"Virg-" Gordon reached over and shook his brother's shoulder, now not so concerned with harming his brother further. He needed his help. "Virgil!"

Virgil still did not respond and Gordon began to whimper. Whether it was from the scorching pain or his concern for his older brother, he did not know, all he knew was that he was now stuck and in pain and had no way to help himself or his brother.

He laid there for a long moment, never feeling so lost, when suddenly a determination hit him.

Virgil needed him. He needed him to get up and get help.

Gordon slowly sat up and steeled himself to look at the grim mess that was his leg again.

There was a distant memory that told him there was a way to release himself from this trap; they were built for bears and not humans after all.

There were switches on either side of the trap, and when Gordon pushed against them, the trap began to release his leg.

It was painful, but not as bad as when the trap had first clamped onto his leg.

Once his leg was free, Gordon threw the trap to the side. His leg was still bleeding and it hadn't slowed down yet, but he didn't have anything on him to stop it. He would just have to keep going before he bled out.

He used the closest tree to pull himself up. He could already feel the effects of blood loss and almost collapsed as soon as he was standing, but managed to keep himself up.

When he was sure he wasn't going to faint, he stumbled over to Virgil, trying his best not to put weight on his bad leg.

He reached down and pulled Virgil back up onto his back, although now he felt ten times heavier.

Gordon almost fell back down after he took the first step, the pain in his leg worse now that he was putting weight on it, but he would not let himself fall. Virgil needed him to keep going.

The first half of the journey had felt much like a casual walk that he'd take across Tracy Island. The second half felt like the longest walk of his life.

Every step was agony and he tripped more than once, but never fell.

He kept going until he finally, _finally_, reached the comm tower.

It was a tall metal structure that had a rickety old staircase leading up to the controls at the top. Gordon left Virgil at the bottom, propped up against the base of the tower. There was no way he would be able to lug his brother up there, but there was no need. He would fix the tower, call his brothers, and then hurry back down to Virgil.

Climbing up the tower was easier than he thought it'd be, but maybe that was because the cold had numbed his leg or adrenaline was keeping him going. Either way, he made it up the tower and before he knew it he was crouched in front of the controls.

It was luckily an easy fix. He just had to open up the compartment beneath the radio transmitter and replace a couple of the wires that had been fried, which the tower had enough of a spare supply of, and reset the system and then the comms were back online.

Gordon worked on autopilot. He wasn't even aware he had fixed it and opened up the comms until he heard John's voice filter through his watch.

"Gordon! I see everything is back online now. What was with the hold up?"

"Virgil's hurt. We crashed the helipod and now he won't wake up. I don't know what's wrong." Gordon got straight to the point. There was no point in wasting time with pleasantries.

"Scott and Alan are already on their way." Trust John to know what to prioritise, not even hesitating to send help. "What about you?"

"I didn't get hurt in the crash." It wasn't a lie, but he was skipping out on the truth. He would survive though; at least he knew what his injury was. He didn't want time wasted on him.

"Alright." John didn't sound too convinced, but at least he moved on. "The storm appears to have cleared up, so Scott and Alan should have no problem with getting to your location. They'll be there soon."

"FAB." Gordon was already heading back down the tower to Virgil, but he kept the link open on his watch.

By the time he reached Virgil, John was talking to him again.

"Now I can contact you guys again I can get a read of your suits. Virgil doesn't appear to have any serious injuries, he probably just hit his head real good. But Gordon-" Gordon could practically _hear_ the frown on John's face. "Are you sure _you're_ okay?"

Gordon swallowed, knowing there was no way he could get out of it now.

"Okay, maybe I-"

Saved by the roaring sounds of Thunderbird One's engines as she came to hover above them. The clearing in the forest that the tower was in may have been too small for Thunderbird Two to land in, it was just big enough for One to squeeze down next to them.

"They're here, gotta go." Gordon closed the comm, despite John's noise of protest, and anxiously waited for his other two brothers to appear from the ship.

As soon as it had landed, Scott and Alan emerged from the bird and came hurrying over to them.

"John told us what happened. We'll get Virgil on the stretcher," Scott gestured to the hover-stretcher he was dragging behind them. "And then we'll take a closer look at him in- wait, Gordon, John never said you were hurt."

Gordon looked at him confused before he looked down at his leg. He hadn't thought it'd be so obvious, but the blood covered snow beneath him was hard to ignore. Not to mention the state his suit was in.

"Maybe that's because I didn't tell him," Gordon admitted as his eldest brother crouched down in front of him and gave his leg a closer examine.

"What happened?" Thankfully, Scott had decided to skip over the reprimanding today.

"I stepped in a bear trap."

Scott frowned as he looked at his leg, but then he leant back on his heels.

"Alright, I only brought one stretcher so I'm gonna take Virg to One and then come back for you. Wait here."

Scott got Virgil situated on the stretcher and then moved to head back to his ship, but Gordon couldn't just let himself be left there.

He made to stand up, but the blood loss and fading adrenaline had him falling back to the ground immediately. Scott sent him a sympathetic look, and then turned to Alan.

"Wait with him. I won't be long."

Alan agreed and then Scott was off with Virgil, leaving the two of them alone.

Scott did return quickly like he said, and with the help of Alan, they got Gordon into Thunderbird One as well.

Thunderbird One was not made for treating injuries like Two was, so it was cosy in the back, but they made it work.

Alan was wrapping up Gordon's leg, which would do until they got back to the island and he could get stitches when they were in a bigger, more breathable space. Across from them, Scott was working on Virgil. Gordon didn't let his eyes leave his brother, not until he knew he was okay.

However, it was like Virgil had been waiting for this moment to wake up. Once Gordon had done all the work and he was safely tucked up inside his oldest brother's ship. Because as soon as Scott had taken off his helmet, there was a groan which was accompanied by Virgil's eyelids fluttering open.

"Well, good morning, sleepyhead." Scott laughed as put the helmet out of the way and stood back over his brother. "Sleep well?"

* * *

_I'm sorry for the lack of updates recently! I've been working on a multichapter fic which has been taking up my time, but I decided to quickly write this to tide you guys over until that's done! :D_


	11. Black Eye

_In which the Hood was behind Gordon's hydrofoil accident. (Gordon & The Hood + Black Eye)_

* * *

If asked, he could pinpoint the exact moment he had made it his duty to take down one Jeff Tracy. He knew the lengths he could go to were considered a bit much for such a simple betrayal, but he was a man who was not simple and who would not let others take advantage of him so easily.

So, taking down Jeff Tracy became his life mission, and what better way to take him down than to start with his sons.

It wasn't an easy task, since Jeff had moved his family to an island that even _he_ didn't know the location of. Anytime one of them was on the mainland, they were always accompanied by someone and never alone.

Except for one.

The second youngest, Gordon, had joined the World Aquanaut Security Patrol just a few months ago, whilst the rest of his family were busy gearing up for who knew what back home.

Now, despite the high security of WASP's base, it wasn't anything that he couldn't sneak past with just a few of the right people in the right places. This was his only opportunity after all.

Even though Gordon had only been at WASP a short time, he had made quite a name for himself. He had already been selected to be a part of a team that were going to test out the new hydrofoil speedboat, a mission that only the best of the best were invited on.

There were a lot of expectations for this mission to go well, which is why it would be so great if it went wrong.

Oh, how devastated Jeff would be if his son died from the recklessness of those who were meant to protect. How had they not checked the controls were working before leaving the docks? Why did it not slow down when it should? So many questions that will be asked but only _he_ could answer.

For he would sneak into the docks and pose as an engineer, feigning some issue that _must be looked at before the ship set off in the morning, it's urgent_.

Then, when their backs were turned he would tamper with the controls. Make it look like something had gone wrong somewhere in the schematics, a tiny error that some scientist had made that cost a whole crew their lives.

It will be upsetting for those involved, but for WASP it will just be a lesson. Something they can learn from and not make again in the future, but not investigate too far into.

It was a shame that so many will have to die for one person, but it was something he was all too willing to do.

The morning the ship set off, he sat and watched.

He watched as the crew boarded and he watched as the hydrofoil flew across the ocean until it could no longer be seen past the horizon.

The call came in much sooner than he had been expecting.

A call that that sent panic across all of command. A call of _the ship won't slow down oh god we're going to crash-_

He smiled. His work was done, and so he left.

_However_, those who had failed more menacing tasks could imagine his disappointment when he found out that some had _lived_. Including the Tracy boy.

He was in a terrible condition. Broken limbs and ligaments. Barely breathing and barely alive.

But he was _alive_ nonetheless.

Alive would not do it. Alive was not what he wanted. _Alive_ would make Jeff Tracy all too happy.

So, the next place he snuck into was the hospital.

Now as a doctor he walked the halls, locating the room. It was more difficult to reach the boy here than at the base. Always a family member around to keep a watchful eye on their second youngest.

But, even a family as strong as theirs got tired and ushered away for a good night's rest and a full meal, before they will take vigil once more.

It was a night several weeks into the boy's stay when he finally got access to the room, with no family members or staff to get in his way.

The room was dim when he entered it; most of the lights came from the million machines around the bed in the middle of the room.

He had never actually got a close enough look at Gordon before; most of the time he had seen him in photos or from a distance, but now that he was standing over him, the boy looked just that. A _boy_.

He looked so small with a tube down his throat and casts, bandages and bruises covering any piece of skin one could see.

This sight only made him hesitate for a second, but it was a second too long. He was just reaching for the ventilator to shut it off when one of the machines bleeped to life.

He looked down at the patient just in time to see the briefest flicker of eyelids and a twitch of the fingertips, which was enough to send a barrel of doctors and nurses into the room.

He sunk into the back of the room, and amongst the chaos no one saw him. They were too busy concentrating on the figure in the bed that was slowly waking up, and he knew his opportunity for now was gone.

He would have to try again later, and so he left the room and the hospital and waited for when his chance would come.

It came way too late.

By this point, he was agitated and angry. How one person could defy death so brilliantly, he would never know, but it would not last long. He would not allow it to.

The boy was now at rehab after months in the hospital, after repairing bones and limbs and nerves that had seemed irreparable and useless now.

He knew he didn't have many chances left to complete his task. Soon, Gordon will be healthy and he will head back to the protection of the island where no one could hurt him. No one like _him_.

So with his last chance in hand, he headed to the rehabilitation centre.

It was a nice, quiet place with a garden in the centre and top of the line medics and physiotherapists. A place he did not belong at, but a place naive enough to let him in.

There were not many people there, despite the size of the facility, so it was not hard for him to find his target.

This time, he needed to take it carefully. He could not rush in. He needed to be slow.

He took the identity of one of the cleaners, someone who would not be missed and therefore he would not be questioned.

He pretended to work, all the while watching Jeff Tracy's son and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.

He watched as he struggled to gain his strength back, as he learnt to walk on two legs again and not just physically, but mentally moving on from what should have killed him.

Too bad it would soon be for nothing, but how sickening it was to know that if the boy was aware of his fate, he would do it all anyway.

One night, he was 'working' late. Sweeping the halls at the end of a long day when he stopped in front of a door.

It was a door into _his_ room. _Gordon's_ room.

He took a look down the hallway each way, but saw no one, and so he left his broom against the wall and slowly turned the handle.

The door did not squeak as he pushed it open, freshly oiled to his advantage.

The room beyond was dark, after all it was practically the middle of the night, and it took him a moment until his eyes adjusted to the surroundings.

It was a similar room to the hospital, albeit with less machines and a touch more of a _homey_ feel to it. But it wasn't a place someone would choose to live in for a while.

There was a figure on the bed, fast asleep and oblivious to what has happening around him. It was so similar to a night just a couple months before.

He stood over the bed, like before, and once again stared down at the boy. He looked better now without all the casts, but he still seemed frail and was much less muscular than he knew a swimmer at WASP should be.

Even in his sleep he seemed to not be able to get away from all the recent distress, as his brow was creased and sweaty and he kept fidgeting.

It took him only a moment to realise the boy was having a nightmare.

He contemplated whether now would be a good time to strike, when his target was most vulnerable, or whether he should watch and wait for a bit longer.

He knew hesitation was what had been his downfall before, so he was reluctant to walk away now that an opportunity had presented itself, but he needed to be careful about this. If he acted too soon, he could be sloppy and end up with too many fingers pointed at him.

Suddenly, Gordon's eyes flew open and he was forced to take quick steps back as the boy sat up, and his thoughts on the matter were gone.

He backed himself into a corner, deep in the shadows of the dark room and held his breath.

Gordon gasped as he was plagued by thoughts that had abruptly torn him from his sleep, but he did not notice the other presence in the room with him.

The other presence who watched him as he sat on his bed and slowly tried to calm down.

Gordon did not appear to have calmed down after several minutes, so he abruptly kicked off his sheets and stumbled over to the glass doors across the room.

He drew the curtains to the side and brought a bright moonlight into the room, which sent the second presence further into the shadows to keep hidden.

The doors opened as Gordon stepped out into the crisp, cold air and onto the balcony overlooking the garden.

He watched the boy go, and as much as he wanted to follow, he knew it would be best to leave now or risk getting caught.

He slipped out of the room and got back to 'work', with nobody else none the wiser.

It was just a little longer into Gordon's stay when he got some visitors. Visitors in the form of four obnoxious brothers and one man who he wished had never graced the earth in the first place.

He watched as hugs and greetings were thrown about and he heard the '_you're doing so well_'s and the '_maybe you can come home soon_'s and it just reminded him off all he had failed to do so far and how his time was quickly running out.

But he was done with watching and waiting. That was all he had done and nothing had changed. It was now or never, this was his last opportunity.

He waited until nightfall, when everyone was fast asleep or back home. As he walked down the empty hallway, he fished through his pocket and pulled out the syringe.

His plan was simple enough; inject the contents into his target's veins and be gone before anyone knew what had happened. It would be painless, much less suffering involved than he would usually prefer, but it would have to do for now. Jeff would suffer, and that was enough for him.

He pushed the bedroom door open and a found it once again dark. He stepped up to the bed, readying the syringe, but as he reached it he realised it was empty.

At that moment, a door opened behind him and he spun around quickly.

Light was cast into the room as a door leading into what was likely a bathroom sat open and a figure stood in the doorway.

Gordon's eyes were wide in shock as he saw him standing there. He had no reason to know who he was, who he _really_ was, but he was most probably wondering why someone was in his room in the middle of the night.

Then, Gordon's eyes flickered to the syringe in his hand and so he had no choice but to strike.

He ran at Gordon before the boy knew what was happening, but before the needle touched his skin, Gordon stepped back out of the way and went to grab at his hand.

His grip was strong around the syringe, but Gordon's strength wasn't far off. He was almost stunned by how quickly the boy had managed to build it back up in his time here, but he wouldn't let that stop him.

He shoved Gordon off of him and Gordon stumbled but he didn't let go. Instead, he tripped and sent them both plummeting towards the floor.

He fell on top of Gordon and Gordon laid there stunned for a moment, but it wasn't enough for him to not notice the syringe headed towards him again.

Gordon batted his hand away, but the boy appeared to have used most of his strength as there wasn't much force behind it.

However, Gordon seemed to change his tactic, as instead of going for the syringe again, his fist headed straight to his attacker's face.

He was sent back as pain flared in his eye, and he realised his mistake.

Now, with his weight off Gordon, Gordon was free to pull himself up. Gordon stumbled past him as he headed towards the door. He had no chance to grab the boy before he was gone, and he growled in frustration as he stood and hurried after him.

But when he reached the hallway, there was no one around, and he knew that it was over.

He would not be able to find the boy before Gordon found someone else and alerted the facility to his attacker. His moment was gone; there was no way he would be able to get close to the boy now.

He yelled in anger again, but then heard voices approaching. He needed to leave, as reluctant as he was to do so.

Later, when he was back at the place where he called home, he stood in his bathroom and watched his reflection.

Around his eye it was black and blue. He hated staring at it but he knew he needed to. Knew he needed to be reminded of his failure so he would not make the same mistakes again.

This was a learning process, something he would rather have gone differently but something he would never let happen again. He had hesitated too much, he knew that's what it was. He should have struck the first moment he could, and should have done it successfully.

His jaw hardened as he continued to stare at himself, at the failure in front of him.

Next time, he would not watch. He would not wait. He would not let Jeff Tracy win, or his name was not The Hood.


	12. Hiding an Injury

_Gordon + Hiding an Injury_

* * *

Gordon stumbled as he was pushed through the door and back into the grand hall, where everyone else who was attending the charity ball was currently being forced onto one side of the room. He tried not to wince as the person who was manhandling him shoved him forward and released their grip on his shoulder.

Gordon quickly searched out the person who he had attended the event with, and once his eyes settled on her ladyship he immediately went over to her.

"Gordon!" She grasped onto his arm as he knelt down on the ground next to her. Her eyes searched him over and he did the same to her. "Are you alright? Did they hurt you?"

"I'm fine, Pen," Gordon brushed her off with a grin he hoped was more convincing than it felt. "What about you?"

"They didn't touch me." Lady Penelope's gaze drifted back to the group of people in armour, holding heavy weapons and keeping an eye trained on their hostages at all times.

Gordon hadn't been too sure about what was going on. All he knew was that he had just been walking out of the bathroom and back to the party when someone grabbed him from behind. He had struggled, which apparently didn't make the person too happy, and now he was paying the consequences.

His side flared in pain as a reminder of what had happened, and he considered telling Penelope what was wrong, but he didn't want to distract her from the bigger problem.

Which was these armed robbers who were currently trying to steal everything that these people had to offer.

Whilst Penelope was busy watching them, Gordon chanced a glance down at his side. He had one of his hands pressed to his shirt, and when he pulled it away his hand was slick with blood.

He swallowed and tried to suppress a flinch when he put his hand against the wound again. He was thankful that he'd decided to wear his dark navy suit, because he knew he wouldn't have an easy time trying to hide this injury with a lighter colour.

At least it was in a place that was covered by his jacket.

Gordon looked back up again when he felt Lady Penelope's hand move to hold his free one. She looked worried, but not scared. That made Gordon feel better, and he knew it made everyone around them feel better too. He didn't want to cause a panic all because he was bleeding all over the polished floor.

"Everyone hand over your belongings!" A woman who seemed to be the head of this operation commanded to the group of individuals on the floor.

Gordon wasn't carrying much other than his wallet and comm unit, so it was easy to fish his things out of his pocket with one hand.

A man came around to collect everyone's things. Gordon handed his over whist trying not to stretch too far and pull at his side. Lady Penelope gave the man her purse and her compact, which meant that they had no hope of calling for help now.

The man turned to move onto the next person, but he hesitated. He eyed Penelope up for a long moment, and Gordon could feel something burning deep inside him.

"Hand over the necklace and earrings too," the man gestured to the jewellery that was studded with diamonds.

Lady Penelope glared at the man, but she still took the jewellery off and gave it to him.

Gordon scowled at the man's retreating back, but his attention was quickly gone from him and back to his Lady when her hands reappeared on his arm.

Rather than waste his energy on goons that weren't worth his time, he instead tried to concentrate on his breathing that he felt was getting harder to do as the pain grew.

Gordon found his gaze start to drift around the room at the rest of partygoers around them, and that was when he realised someone was missing.

"Where's Parker?" He whispered to Penelope, not wanting to let the robbers know that someone had avoided their capture.

Penelope had been watching the leader of the group as she commanded the rest of her goons to see what they could take from the stately home they were in, but at Gordon's question she faced him again, and she _smiled_.

"Whilst you were gone, I had Parker bring the car around," she whispered back.

Gordon raised an eyebrow at her. "What? You wanted to leave already?"

"Well, I've done all I came here to do, and you were looking a little bored." She winked and nudged his side, and that time Gordon couldn't keep in the noise that escaped him as pain flared through his side, but he tried to pass it off with his next words.

"Whaat? Me? A party with free food and drinks? I wasn't bored."

Lady Penelope laughed softly, which was a blessed release from the pain.

"There's not even any alcohol, I know you only came for me."

That was something that Gordon couldn't deny, and he felt his cheeks heat up.

"Anyway, Parker should have seen them come in," she continued. "He'll send for help."

Gordon opened his mouth to reply, but any word that was about to come out of his mouth was cut off by the man that came to stand in front of him and shouted, "Be quiet!"

So, Gordon and Lady Penelope were forced to sit there in silence with the rest of the hostages. Now that Gordon had nothing to concentrate on, he could feel his vision start to get blurry and his brain was getting fuzzy. His side was searing with pain and he knew he wasn't going to be able to hide his blood dripping onto his pants for much longer.

He jolted as he suddenly realised he was listing to the side and he sat up quickly before he fell over. He didn't realise how tired he was getting and he shook his head to try and clear it.

"Gordon? Is everything alright?" Lady Penelope asked as she leant in close, not caring about being shouted at again.

"Yeah, yeah," Gordon nodded, but that just sent a wave of dizziness through his head. "It's just-"

He was cut off again, but this time it was by the new group of people who burst into the building.

It was the GDF, Gordon quickly realised from the uniforms, and they were telling the others to put their guns down.

A lot was happening at once and Gordon was finding it hard to keep track of it all, and before he knew it he was being ripped up off the floor.

"Gordon!" He heard Lady Penelope yell, but all he could concentrate on was the burn in his side.

When the pain settled just a little, he realised that he was being held against someone's chest. There was an arm around his neck and a gun digging into the back of his head.

There was a lot of yelling. Some of it was really loud, like it was coming from right next to his ear, and some of it sounded so far away.

He knew there was one voice that he recognised amongst it. He didn't know what she was saying, but he searched her out.

He found her not far away, right where she had last been, but now she was standing. He wanted to tell her to get back down, that it wasn't safe, but he couldn't find his voice. All he could do was stare, and try not to cry at the pain.

He wasn't too sure what happened next as he was slowly losing his grip on consciousness, but suddenly he was crashing onto the floor.

He might have _actually_ lost consciousness then, because the next time he opened his eyes, Lady Penelope was leaning over him.

"Gordon..." she smiled sadly. There were tears in her eyes and Gordon would have wiped them away if he had the energy. He would probably get blood on her face anyway, which he didn't want to do.

"I'm going to get you help, okay?"

"Okay," was all he could manage in return.

There were soon more people appearing around him, touching him and prodding him where it hurt, but he didn't pay them any mind. He only had eyes for her.

"Just stay with me," she said, and Gordon would try, he really would, because he never wanted to let her go.

* * *

_Don't worry Gordon gets saved by Lady P and then they cuddle but not before she tells him off for scaring her _again_._


	13. Hair Matted with Blood

_Gordon & Virgil + Hair Matted with Blood_

* * *

Gordon heard a knock at his door at the same moment he was stuffing the last of his clothes into his drawers that certainly did _not _have enough space for what he was putting into them.

"Come in," he called as he finally got the drawer to close all the way by shoving his hip against it.

He had been expecting it to be his dad at the door to see how he was getting on with cleaning his room, so when the door opened he was kind of surprised to see it was Virgil standing there.

"Hey, Virg. What do you want?" Gordon sat on his bed, relieved to have a bit of a break from cleaning.

"Why do you assume I want something?" Virgil stepped into the room, and leant against Gordon's desk and crossed his arms.

"Because I'm sure there are better things for you to do than to come and watch me clean my room." Gordon laughed at the look Virgil gave him, knowing that he was right.

"Fine." Virgil dropped his arms. "I need a favour."

"What kind of favour?" Gordon eyed him sceptically. He wasn't about to agree to anything too early.

"I just need help with something. Apparently, someone left the gate open to the dairy field and a lot of the cows escaped. Dad wants me to go and herd them back in," Virgil explained, and Gordon's eyebrow rose in question as to why he was being involved in this. "I just need an extra pair of hands to help me and get it over with quicker."

"And why should I help?" Gordon had better things to do than round up a bunch of cows.

"Because it'll get you out of cleaning your room."

Now that was something that was tempting to Gordon. He was bored of cleaning, and after eyeing up the clutter he still had on his floor, he knew he was nowhere near finished.

"Alright," Gordon relented. "Just let me get my shoes on."

"I'll be waiting in the truck."

Virgil left his room after that and Gordon went searching for his wellington boots because he knew he was going to get muddy after walking through fields all day, especially as it had rained just the night before.

Once he had found them and shoved them on his feet and grabbed a jacket, he headed out the front door.

Virgil was sitting in the driver's seat of the truck, just like he said he'd be, and he gave Gordon a little wave when he came down the porch steps.

Once Gordon had climbed into the passenger seat and was strapped in, Virgil drove them down the dirt track that took them to the dairy field.

For the beginning of the journey, the only sounds that were heard in the truck were from the quiet radio that had been turned almost the whole way down. But it was only about a minute into the drive when Virgil spoke.

"So, how's Gordon?"

"What?" Gordon was startled by the sudden question that seemingly came out of nowhere. "Why do you suddenly want to know?"

"What? I just wanted to catch up a bit," Virgil shrugged defensively. "What's going on at school? Or what about your swimming?"

"Oh, so that's what this is about." Gordon turned to his brother. "You didn't want my help, you just wanted to chat."

"Well, I do appreciate the help, but we never hang out as much as we used to! I thought that maybe this would be a nice way to spend some time with each other, before..."

"Before you leave." Gordon immediately regretted saying those words and he could already feel the lump in his throat at the reminder they brought with them.

Thankfully, they had just reached the farm and Gordon was already opening the door before the truck came to a complete stop.

"Gord-" Virgil began, but was cut off by the door slamming shut on him.

Gordon headed to the where the gate still swung open and occupied himself with latching it closed again before the remaining cows decided to go for a wander as well.

A moment later he heard the sound of a door closing as Virgil exited the truck too.

"Gordon."

Gordon felt a hand on his shoulder and he spun around to face his brother who was standing behind him.

"Come on, don't be like this. You know I have to go."

"You don't _have_ to go to college," Gordon pointed out, but no matter how much he had told his brother that over the past year, he knew it was a futile argument. His brother would be leaving soon no matter what Gordon tried, because he _wanted_ to go, not because he had to.

Virgil smiled sympathetically at him as Gordon dropped his shoulders in defeat.

"I still have two weeks left before I leave, though," Virgil pointed out. "So what do you say to after today, you can come up with something we can do together before I leave?"

Gordon knew that he would be an idiot to keep shutting his brother out instead of spending the little time they had together doing things they enjoyed.

So he nodded at the suggestion and offered his brother a small smile, determined to not let his mood ruin his day when he could spend it enjoying his time with Virgil before he moved away.

"Let's go round up some cows then, shall we?"

* * *

It took the two of them hours to find the runaway cows that were scattered across the local fields and get them back to the pen they were supposed to be in. The dairy field was even a part of their farm, but the couple that owned it were old and appreciated it when the boys helped them out.

They didn't end up finding all of the cows, there were still a couple that were missing, but the two of them had been at it for hours and were hungry and tired, so they decided to head back home and maybe come back out later. If any of their neighbours found any wayward cows, they would let them know anyway.

Despite only being partially successful in their task, Gordon had had one of the best days he'd had in a while. He couldn't remember when he'd last spent a whole day with Virgil, just the two of them, and it was reminding him why he didn't want his brother to go.

However, he knew that he was just being selfish and he was wasting time being upset over something that was going to happen whether he liked it or not. So he instead spent his time enjoying his day with his brother.

It was especially enjoyable when Virgil tripped over in the middle of a muddy field and ended up streaked with dirt from head to toe. Gordon had almost fallen over he laughed so hard at him, which just caused Virgil to pull him down the rest of the way with him too.

By the time the two of them made it back to the truck, they were both covered in mud and their limbs were aching, but nothing could wipe the smile off of Gordon's face or spoil such a perfect day.

Which was why Gordon didn't understand how he was now staring at the smashed windscreen in front of him as the crushed passenger door of the car dug into his side.

As Gordon pushed the deflating airbag out of the way, memories flashed before his eyes of how they'd ended up like this.

Driving back home, a stray cow coming out of nowhere and onto the road, the car spinning as Virgil swerved out of the way. Crashing, pain, and then he was waking up here.

There was the sound of movement next to him and Gordon twisted towards his brother, but stopped with a wince when he felt something tug against his side.

"Virg?" Gordon turned his head to his left, where his older brother was slowly sitting up.

Virgil was bleeding from a cut at his hairline, his hair matted with blood that dripped down his forehead and mixed with the dirt from earlier.

One of Virgil's hands moved towards the cut and he grimaced, before he finally registered Gordon's voice and turned to his brother.

"Gordon!" Virgil's hand left his head and moved towards Gordon. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"I-" Gordon hadn't thought about that yet. "I don't know."

He turned away from his brother to assess himself, and now that he was thinking about it, he was now realising how much he hurt.

The car had crashed into a tree at the side of the road, which had just narrowly missed the passenger door. But the front of the car was wrapped around its trunk, and the space where Gordon's feet were was crushed.

"My leg's stuck," he informed Virgil after he tried to pull his legs away from the warped metal and his right one got caught on something. He tugged his leg again, but a sharp pain shot down his calf and halted any further movement.

"We need to call for help," Virgil frowned as he released his seatbelt and started to fish around in his back pocket for his phone. As he did so, Gordon noticed that his other hand was laying limp on his lap.

"What's wrong with your arm?"

"Hmm?" Virgil looked up at him and then down to his arm. "Oh, I don't know, but it might be broken." As if to show him, Virgil went to lift his arm but stopped with a wince.

In his other hand, his phone appeared, and Virgil tried to navigate it with one hand before he dialled a number and lifted his phone to his ear.

Whilst Virgil was on the phone, Gordon also went to release his seatbelt. It felt a little better to have the pressure off his chest and he could breathe a little easier, but he wasn't sure if that helped with the pain.

His head was throbbing and there was something digging into his side, although he wasn't sure what. At least the pain in his leg was starting to get numb, but he didn't think that was a good thing.

"Dad's on his way, and he called an ambulance which will be here soon," Virgil told Gordon as he dropped the phone into the compartment between them, and Gordon nodded in acknowledgement.

Gordon did want his dad and he was glad that Virgil had rung him rather than just an ambulance. His brother always knew what he wanted, and today was just another example of that.

"Hey, Virg?"

"Yeah, Gordo?"

"Thanks for today."

Virgil had been staring down at his injured arm, but at Gordon's words he looked up and furrowed his brow in confusion.

"What? What are you thanking me for? I got you hurt!"

"I didn't mean about that, and that's not really your fault anyway. What I meant was that today was a lot of fun, and just," he hesitated as he took a deep breath, "thank you for spending time with me."

Virgil looked shocked at those words, but then a small smile crept onto his face.

"I always want to spend time with you, Gordon. And I'm sorry if you felt like that wasn't the case."

Virgil reached forward to wipe a stray tear that Gordon hadn't realised had dropped onto his cheek. His hand then moved down to Gordon's and he gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Gordon could just about manage a smile in return, but when Virgil went to pull his hand away, Gordon gripped onto it to keep it in place.

"Don't go, not yet," Gordon said to the raised eyebrow his brother gave him. An understanding look crossed over Virgil's face, and he nodded.

His hand grasped onto Gordon's again, a solid reminder that Gordon wasn't alone, and it didn't move until help arrived.


	14. Drowning

_Lady Penelope + Drowning_

_An AU where the bros are elemental spirits!_

* * *

There were rumours, in these parts. Ancient stories from long ago that had been passed down from generation to generation. About five spirits who were the embodiment of the worldly elements.

A spirit of Air, Earth, Fire and Water, and a fifth element that was a combination of them all.

They supposedly helped people, saved lives. They used their powers over the elements to cast rain and sunshine, to build mountains and grow crops.

Penelope didn't believe in any such rumours. She would only believe they were true if she had seen proof, and seeing as nobody had any proof of elemental beings, she wasn't willing to put her head out on the line to defend these children's stories.

Her mother had claimed they were real. That it was the work of the water spirit that had stopped the drought that threatened to claim the livelihood of the local farms, that it was the air spirit who helped the birds migrate each year.

Penelope claimed that it was just nature.

Little did she know that these spirits _were_ nature.

She was a stubborn woman, she could blame both her parents for that, so she was confident she would never change her mind on the matter. As long as there was no proof, there was nothing to tell her that it was nothing more than Mother Nature that caused the flowers to bloom every spring.

Penelope didn't think her opinion would ever change, until it did.

It was during a week long holiday across the North Atlantic Ocean, in her private yacht FAB 2. She had taken the time off to recuperate after a rather stressful few months.

It wasn't her idea; rather it was her chauffeur's. She wanted to dismiss the idea, say that she didn't need the time off, but it wasn't just her she had to think about. Parker had been working just as hard as she had, and if she didn't deserve the break, he at least did.

On one of her last nights out on the sea before they reached home again, she had decided to head out onto the deck and enjoy the peace of the waves for a bit.

She sat on a chair with comfy pillows and looked up at the dark sky.

Out here, on the water, it was so clear. The light of the moon rained down on her, and Penelope couldn't help but wonder, that if the spirits were true, which one was responsible for the stars.

After she had taken in all the constellations that could be seen from this part of the world, her eyes eventually closed. She took in the smell of the salt and the sound of the water lapping against the boat, and tried not to let the way the ship rocked back and forth lull her to sleep.

Her eyes bolted open as the boat jolted suddenly. She sat up straighter and looked around to see what had happened.

From her spot in her chair, she couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, so she got up and made her way over to the railing that looked over the sea.

When Penelope looked down over the railing, she saw what the problem was. The ship had hit some rocks, not big enough to damage the boat, but big enough to still cause a problem.

She wondered why their scanners hadn't picked them up on the radar so they could have avoided hitting the rocks, but nevertheless it had happened, and now they needed to steer away before they reached any bigger ones.

Penelope reached into her pocket for her compact to contact Parker, who was somewhere on the ship, but before she could hit the call button, the boat abruptly lurched again as it crashed into a bigger rock.

Penelope tried to keep hold of the railing in front of her, but the boat tipped too much and she suddenly felt herself being thrown from the boat.

Her back smacked against the surface of the water and the air was immediately knocked out of her lungs. She tried to suck more air in, but she was already under and just chocked on water.

She was drowning. She was going to die. She needed to fight this, to push herself back up to the surface, but she couldn't tell which way was up and she just seemed to be getting deeper with every move she made.

Everything was slipping away. When she could finally see the surface, it was too far. There was a light slipping into the water, but she was just sinking into the darkness.

Maybe it was a trick of her mind as it tried to fight one final moment for its much needed oxygen, but she saw something. Something that moved across her vision.

She thought it could be a fish, coming to feast on what she would leave behind, but no. It looked too...human.

It was definitely a person, a shadowy one at that, but there was no doubt about it when it got closer. There was a chance it was Parker, who had realised what had happened and had come to save her, but then Penelope could sight of their eyes.

They were nothing like Parker's sky blue ones. These were brown and looked like pebbles she would find on a beach back in England.

Those eyes were the last things she saw.

* * *

Penelope woke up coughing. Water splashed over her chin and she turned to her side and waited for her lungs to stop burning.

When she had finally caught her breath, she sat up and looked around.

She was back on the deck. It was covered in water, but there was no sign of anybody around.

"M'lady!"

Penelope turned to find Parker running across the deck. He fell down in his knees when he reached her side.

"What happened?"

"Parker, did you see another person around?" She quickly asked her chauffeur, ignoring his question.

"No, M'lady," Parker was watching her in confusion after he also cast a look around the deck.

"So, you were the one who pulled me out of the water?" Penelope asked, finding it to be the only explanation.

"What? The water?" Parker's voice turned worried as he found out about her predicament. "No, M'lady. You were right here when I found you."

Penelope's gaze drifted back to the sea, barely acknowledging the towel that Parker draped over her shoulders. Her mind went back to those pebble-brown eyes, and she wondered just who they belonged to.

No matter who it was, she knew she wouldn't forget them any time soon, and she would do anything to see them again.


	15. Animal Attack

_Gordon & Virgil + Animal Attack_

_An AU where instead of IR, the boys start up an organisation that hunts supernatural and mythical creatures!_

* * *

Virgil slowed the car into a stop when they reached the end of the dirt path. Trees blocked them from going any further, so they would have to head the rest of the way on foot.

Gordon was flinging the car door open before Virgil had even fully stopped the car, and he was already grabbing the bag from the backseat in the time it took Virgil to turn the engine off.

"Slow down!" Virgil called to his little brother as he scrambled to unbuckle his seatbelt and clamber out of the car. Gordon was already past the tree line, but he thankfully stopped and waited for Virgil to catch up with him.

"What's the hurry, anyway?" Virgil asked as he finally reached him.

"Don't act like you don't know, Virg!" Gordon was back to hurrying through the woods, and Virgil had to almost jog to keep up with him. "We're gonna finally get proof that these exist. Aren't you excited?"

It was hard to not be excited with how contagious Gordon's enthusiasm was, but Virgil just didn't think he could have the same passion for these things that his little brothers had.

"But there's already proof that werewolves exist." Virgil cast an uneasy glance at the woods around them as he remembered what they were here for.

"Not like what we're gonna get!" Gordon spun around as he reached a clearing and, seemingly pleased with this spot, started to grab the equipment out of his backpack. "With Brains' equipment, we're going to get the highest quality footage that exists. Think of all the research that can come of it! John will love it."

As Gordon spoke, he took the equipment that was in the bag and laid it out on the grass of the clearing. It was mainly cameras, motion detectors and tracking equipment. All of it was compact and painted the colour of the woods around them, so they would be easily hidden and would blend in well with their surroundings.

"Alan will be so jealous he couldn't come," Gordon said as he threw the now empty backpack onto his back again and picked up a few of the cameras. They were on extendable poles that were a couple of feet long and had a sharp point at the end, so that they could be dug into the dirt and stand up straight.

"At least he's safe." Virgil didn't mean to voice his thoughts, but Gordon already knew how he felt about all this. They were out in the middle of the woods, alone, with the possibility of dangerous creatures nearby. He didn't want to come out here at all, but Gordon couldn't rest until he came out here after he heard the rumours. He would have come whether Virgil followed or not, and at least this way Virgil could keep an eye on him.

"Look, the faster we set up the equipment, the sooner we can get out of here." Gordon stood up from where he had been knelt on the ground, and he held out the cameras he was holding. "Just go set up some of these for me deeper in the trees, whilst I set up the rest of the stuff here."

Virgil reluctantly took the cameras off of him. He didn't want to leave Gordon on his own, but he did want to get this over with and head back to the car as soon as possible. That would mean they had to split up.

"Alright, but I won't go far. Call for me if you need anything."

"Sure thing!" Gordon grinned at him and then turned to start setting up his own equipment. Virgil sent him a final glance, and then walked deeper into the trees.

He was true to his word and didn't head far. Gordon had given him four cameras, and Virgil searched for a suitable place to put them.

Despite his reluctance to this particular mission, he was still slightly giddy at the idea of gathering footage that no one had gotten before. Even though werewolves had been around for centuries, like most supernatural creatures there wasn't a whole lot of information on them, and this was exactly why they started their organisation in the first place.

So it shouldn't be surprising that Gordon jumped at the chance to come here after they heard the rumours that people had seen werewolves in these woods, and those who lived nearby had reported hearing howls in the night. He and Alan were the most passionate about these things, whereas Virgil was more concerned with keeping his family safe. If he put these cameras in the right place, then he only had to worry about coming back to collect them later. Hopefully at a time that wasn't so close to a full moon.

It didn't take him long to set the cameras up. These woods were pretty spacious, so it wasn't hard to find spots that were facing clearings rather than just trees. After securing the cameras in the ground, all he had to do was make sure they were switched on before moving onto the next one.

It was when he was just searching for a suitable spot for the fourth camera when he heard a scream.

The camera he was holding fell to the floor as Virgil sprinted back through the trees.

He made it back to where he last left Gordon in seconds, but his brother was now laying in the middle of the clearing with a big, black beast standing over him.

It was hairy and massive, almost the size of the two of them combined. The wolf's teeth were latched onto Gordon's shoulder, and Gordon was struggling to push it off.

"Hey!" Virgil yelled, and the werewolf's attention snapped towards him.

There was blood dripping from its teeth, and it bared them with a growl as it leapt off Gordon and stalked towards Virgil.

Virgil stepped back as the beast got closer and he fished something out of his back pocket. He produced a small device that Brains had invented, that emitted a high pitched noise when activated.

Virgil held it out and pressed the button in the centre of the device. He couldn't hear if it was working, but he could see it was by the way the wolf suddenly backed off. With a whine, it ran off into the trees.

He turned the device off and shoved it back into his pocket as he hurried over to Gordon's side.

Gordon's eyes were closed and he didn't move as Virgil knelt next to him.

"Gordon?" Virgil said softly as he leant in closer to inspect his brother. Gordon still didn't react.

His shoulder was bleeding heavily. The strap of his backpack was torn to shreds, and Virgil dreaded to think of what his shoulder looked like beneath his shirt.

Virgil's eyes scanned down to also find that Gordon's chest was bleeding through the torn strips of his shirt where the wolf's claws had ripped through it.

Virgil's heart was racing and as the adrenaline of seeing that beast started to fade, he began to feel sick with the memory of seeing the wolf with blood dripping from its mouth. Gordon needed help, and quickly.

He scooped his little brother up off the ground, careful not to jostle his injuries. There was a small groan from Gordon as he was moved, but any hope of him waking up was quickly gone as Virgil looked down and saw Gordon's eyes still closed.

As Virgil began to make his way back to the car, he heard more movement coming from deeper in the trees, and Virgil was hauntingly reminded that wolves ran in packs.

He went as fast as he could with Gordon in his arms, and each step he took, he could hear even more behind him.

When he reached the car, he realised he had a problem. With his hands occupied, he couldn't open the car door, or unlock it as the keys were in his pocket.

He had to lay Gordon back down on the ground. He propped his brother up against the wheel of the car, and then hurried to grab the keys from his jeans.

The car unlocked with a click and once the backdoor was opened, Virgil picked Gordon back up and laid him gently across the backseat.

As soon as Virgil stood up and went to close the door, he heard a growl behind him. He quickly turned, and could see several pairs of eyes watching him through the trees. And they were getting closer.

Virgil didn't hesitate any longer as he ran around the other side of the car. He opened the door to the driver's seat, and at the same moment he closed it behind him, another werewolf slammed its body against the door.

Virgil was fortunate that the window was shut as the teeth of the beast scratched against the glass.

Another wolf appeared at the window of the passenger seat and Virgil could hear one more slam against another part of the car, but he didn't look where as he was already busy starting up the car.

The trees around him were too close to be able to turn around, so Virgil had to reverse back down the dirt road until there was an opening wide enough for him to turn in.

The werewolves scratched their claws against the car, but they didn't put up too much of a resistance as Virgil drove away. By the time he found a spot he could turn around in, the wolves had all but disappeared.

That didn't make Virgil slow down, though, and he continued down the road until he exited the woods.

When he pulled out onto the main road, that was when he finally allowed himself to relax a bit. He pulled over at the side of the road, and twisted in his seat to take another look at Gordon.

Gordon still hadn't moved, and his skin was growing alarmingly pale. Blood was staining the seat he was lying on, and Virgil wasn't sure that the bleeding had slowed down at all.

He only gave his brother one final glance before he was turning in his seat and facing the road ahead.

His hands were shaking as he grabbed his phone from where he'd left it in the cup holder next to his seat, and he punched in the location of the closest hospital.

There was one about ten miles away, and once Virgil had pulled the directions up on his phone, he was starting off down the road again.

* * *

He was forced to sit in the waiting room of the hospital whilst Gordon was getting patched up. Virgil had already informed the rest of their family, but the two of them were far from the base and so it would take the rest of their family a while to arrive.

So, it was just Virgil who could watch over his little brother for now, but he still had to wait for them to let him in.

When a doctor finally appeared and said Gordon was awake and ready for visitors, Virgil hurried to his room so quickly he almost forgot to ask where his room actually was.

Virgil opened the door once he reached the correct room, and the first thing he saw was the bandages wrapped around Gordon's right shoulder and his chest. A blanket covered up most of bandages wrapped around his torso, but Virgil knew they went as far down as his stomach.

The second thing he saw was how Gordon was propped up on some pillows and he was watching Virgil with tired eyes.

"Hey," Virgil gave his brother a smile as he pulled the chair that sat in the room over to Gordon's bed.

"Hey," Gordon replied in a hoarse voice. He lifted one of his hands as if to give Virgil a little wave.

"How're you feeling?"

"Like I just got eaten by a bear." Gordon groaned and tipped his head back as he realised something that Virgil hadn't yet. "I'm not gonna turn into a werewolf, am I?"

"Uh, no," Virgil laughed at the distressed look on Gordon's face. "I don't think that's how it works."

"Phew!" Gordon sighed heavily and closed his eyes as he relaxed. But then he sat up as he thought of something else. "The cameras! Did you set them up?"

Virgil's brow creased at the subject change, not seeing why that was the biggest concern right now.

"Gordon, I don't think this is the time-"

"I want to know me getting eaten was worth something!" Virgil grimaced at the reminder of seeing that wolf standing over his brother, blood dripping from its mouth, but Gordon didn't seem to notice. "If they got set up then they'll be recording just what we need! Brains should already be receiving the footage."

"I got most of them set up, but I think one of them ended up on the floor," Virgil recalled as he remembered dropping the last one before running to his brother.

"That's fine. I got all of mine up and running, plus most of the motion detectors. I didn't get to set up the tracking equipment, but that's alright because we know they're there, we just won't know where they'll go."

"Gordon," Virgil cut in before his brother could continue his rambling that sounded much more energetic than Gordon looked. "Are you not, you know, concerned with what happened?"

Gordon was acting like nothing had happened, whereas Virgil couldn't get the image of seeing his little brother torn up and bloody out of his head.

Gordon shrugged, but then winced at the movement.

"I mean, I guess I am, but at the end of the day we got actual proof and the footage that we needed. I think that makes it all worth it."

Virgil just shook his head as he sat back in his seat.

"I'll never understand your excitement about all of this," he muttered towards the ceiling.

"But I love you always," Gordon replied with a smile in his voice, and Virgil chuckled as he smiled too.

"Just get some rest, Sprout." Virgil stood up from the chair and stretched. "I'll go let everyone know you're still as annoying as ever and see how far away they are."

Virgil ruffled his brother's hair as he stepped past him.

"You still love me, too!" Gordon called to him and Virgil opened the door.

"Yeah, yeah." Virgil sighed, but he was still smiling as he left the room.


	16. Misaimed Blame

_Gordon & Alan + Misaimed Blame_

* * *

"Just bringing up the last few up, Thunderbird 2," Gordon informed their older brother.

"FAB, Gordon. Standing by."

At Virgil's confirmation, Gordon swam back over to where Alan was gathering the last of the workers and directing them towards the exit the two of them had marked.

"Everything set?" Gordon asked his other brother who had accompanied him on this rescue.

"Yep." Alan nodded and gestured to the remaining group of people still in the flooded building. "Everyone's got their helmets on and I made sure they were all secure."

Gordon smiled proudly at his only younger brother. He knew he could rely on him to get them all ready whilst Gordon had headed up with the last group.

"Good. Then let's get out of here."

Gordon then turned to the workers who were waiting on them two to get them out of there.

"Alright. I need all of you to follow us out of here." The workers all turned to Gordon and listened intently whilst he spoke. "We're going to head out along the corridor and swim up the elevator shaft until we reach the top level. It's less flooded up there."

"It'll be easier once we're up there," Alan continued for him. "Our brother will be waiting for us at the entrance."

Once the workers had confirmed they all understood what was happening, they left the room they were in and headed out of the facility.

As the group swam through the hallway, Gordon at the front and Alan at the back, Gordon wondered for not the first time on this rescue why people still insisted on building their facilities underground, on the coast, when all it ever ended in was disaster.

That thought reminded him of another matter, and as he swam along Gordon contacted another brother.

"John, do you have any idea how the facility got flooded yet?"

"Negative," John's voice came through his comm, and Gordon could hear the sigh in his voice as he came to another dead end. "There haven't been any earthquakes nearby and there doesn't seem to have been any weak points in the structure before it flooded. By all accounts, it should have stayed intact."

"That's strange. Do you think there could be any other reasons as to why it flooded?"

"Well, there is one more." John paused briefly before he explained further. "It could have been done deliberately."

Gordon frowned at those words and cast an uneasy glance to the rest of the workers behind them.

"Why would someone do that?" He asked John, but with a quieter voice than before now that there was a possibility that there could be someone dangerous around them.

"Beats me, but I'll see if I can find anything that could help."

"FAB."

At that moment, they reached the elevator, and Gordon knew he needed to now concentrate on helping everyone up the elevator shaft.

"I've got to go," he told John. "We can talk more about this later."

"FAB. I'll let Virgil know, just in case," John signed off, but those words left Gordon with a sense of urgency.

If someone did purposely flood the facility, then they could still be around, and that meant they could have been in one of the groups Gordon had helped up earlier. Which meant that there was a chance that Virgil had been left alone with them. Gordon didn't like to think of what would happen if that were the case, so he didn't want to stick around here for long.

As Gordon swam into the flooded elevator shaft, he twisted around to face the workers who had been following closely behind him. The ones at the front were looking at the shaft worriedly.

"All you have to do is swim up. I'll be at the top and will help you out of the water when you get to it. My brother will be down here in case you need help."

At their nods, Gordon swam up the elevator shaft.

The elevator car itself was sat at the top of the shaft, unusable and immobile after the water had malfunctioned the electronics of it. Alan and Gordon had cut a hole through the bottom of it to drop through into the water and climb back through to the top level of the facility.

When Gordon had reached the top, he pulled himself through the hole and out of the water.

The flooding had only just reached this level. There was barely a couple of inches of water on the ground here, which meant that if there weren't any hiccups, then they would get the rest of the workers out of here before this whole place was flooded.

Once Gordon was standing in the elevator, he looked back down the hole and could already see the first of the workers heading towards the surface.

A moment later, a head broke free of the surface and arms reached out to find purchase on the elevator floor.

Gordon helped pull the person out of the water, and once they were also standing, he directed them out of the building.

"Just follow the hallway to the right, where the exit is. My brother will be waiting there," he explained with a smile.

The person gave him a grateful smile in return, and then left with his instructions.

Gordon continued like that. After each person he helped up through the hole, he directed them away. Now that they were on the top floor and so close to the exit, it was safe enough to send them off without worrying that something would happen to them. It also meant that they could get them all out quickly in case the situation got worse.

The last of the workers that Gordon had to pull through was a man, and after Gordon sent him on his way, he turned back to the hole where Alan was just emerging.

"Is that everyone?" Gordon asked his brother as he helped him to stand. In the time it took to get all the workers up to the surface, the water was already up to their shins.

"Yep!" Alan nodded. "I counted them all. There's no one left."

"Good job. Let's get out of here, then."

They both turned to head down the same route they'd directed the workers down, but then stopped short as they noticed the last man they'd helped out of the water still standing there, watching them.

"Are you alright?" Gordon asked, concerned that maybe he'd missed an injury or something and this man needed their help.

"No," was all the man said.

"Are you hurt?" Alan had the same thought as him, and he took a step closer to the man.

"I'm not, but they were." Gordon didn't miss the way the man clenched his hands at his side as his gaze flickered away briefly.

"Who?" Alan looked to Gordon in confusion, but Gordon had no idea what the man was saying either. Maybe he meant another one of the workers? But they all had appeared to be fine, and none of them admitted to having an injury when asked.

"It's all your fault," the man ignored their question. His gaze had moved back towards them and his eyes locked with theirs. Gordon felt a dread building up as he saw the anger that was now appearing on the man's face.

"What?" Gordon slowly stepped in front of Alan, but still a safe distance from the man as he grew more concerned about what this man was saying. He still had no idea what the man was talking about, but he didn't think it was going to lead to anything good.

"They died. They both died and it was all your fault!" The man suddenly moved forward, and the two brothers instinctively took a step back, fully aware of the hole behind them they could fall back down.

The man stopped right at the edge of the elevator doors. He pulled something out of his pocket that Gordon couldn't quite see, but it looked like some sort of small, rectangular device.

"You left them alone to die. So now you will know how that feels."

Before either of them had a chance to question the man further, he ripped open the control unit next to the elevator and shoved the device amongst all the wires. A second later, despite the water damage, the elevator lights sparked to life and the doors began to close.

"Wait!" Gordon cried as he moved to stop the doors from closing, but they shut at a much faster rate than was normal and he had to move out of the way before they squished him between them.

The man disappeared behind the doors and Gordon and Alan were on their own.

Gordon turned to the worried face of his brother, but before he could say something to comfort him, the remaining floor of the elevator began to shake beneath their feet. The walls around them followed suit, and Gordon quickly realised what was about to happen.

"Grab onto something!" He yelled out as he took hold of the metal railing that ran around the walls.

Alan grasped on too, just as the elevator was dropped down the shaft.

As they crashed into the water, Gordon felt his grip being ripped from the railing and he was thrown around the elevator.

* * *

When Gordon came to, he was floating. He peeled open his eyes and saw that they were both still in the elevator, but the lights had flickered out again and all they had were the lights on their helmets.

"Alan?" Gordon called out as he spun around in the water.

"I'm here," his brother replied right as Gordon set his eyes on him. He was swimming to move upright as he was also laying at the bottom of the elevator.

"Are you alright?" Gordon reached out to inspect him, but was instead met with a pain in his right arm and he winced.

"I think I am. Are you?" Alan pointed to his arm.

Gordon lifted the appendage and from the pain he felt he suspected that, annoyingly, it was broken. He was wearing his exo-suit, which was supposed to protect him from injuries, at least he thought it did.

Although, the metal plating of his suit was cracked over where he suspected the break was, which made him wonder how bad the injury would be if the suit wasn't there to protect him.

Gordon's gaze left his arm and went back to his brother, who was looking around the elevator.

"Think there's a way out of here?" Gordon asked him. He also had a look around, but it didn't look too promising.

The doors were still shut, and with the power now shut down again, they wouldn't be able to get them open without prying them open.

"Not unless we cut another hole in the roof," Alan said as he moved away from the doors, just to check that they really were unusable.

At those words, Gordon instinctively lifted his arm to use the built-in plasma cutter, but immediately saw the problem.

The laser was on his right arm. Not only would it hurt too much to attempt to cut a hole through the roof, the laser didn't even work anymore anyway. His suit was split right over the controls.

"That doesn't seem likely." Gordon looked back up to his brother guiltily. Alan's suit didn't have a plasma cutter, which mean that Gordon's would have been their only way out of here.

Behind the plexiglass of his helmet, Gordon saw his little brother frown. He swam over to Gordon and gently took his arm in his hands.

"Hopefully, our comms still work." Alan let go of his arm once he'd looked at it, and he lifted his watch. "Virg? Are you there?"

Virgil's hologram appeared between them, and he looked at each of them with both confusion and relief.

"Where are you two? The rest of the workers came up and said you were right behind them. What happened?"

"We got into a bit of an issue." 'A bit' was an understatement on Alan's part. "One of the workers sabotaged the lift and now we're stuck at the bottom of the shaft."

"What? Are you alright?" Virgil's eyes darted between them as he tried to assess them for injuries.

"Gordon broke his arm, but other than that we're fine." Gordon glared at his betrayal of letting their big brother in on his injury, but Alan ignored him. "We can't get back up, though."

"Alright, but it'll take a bit of time as I don't have my underwater suit." Gordon could already tell that Virgil was hurrying back to Thunderbird 2. "Maybe I can put together a pod, but I'll need to drill into the building as it's not gonna just fit through the door."

Suddenly, there was an alarm beeping on Alan's watch, and Virgil's hologram disappeared and was replaced by a warning. It displayed the levels of oxygen that was in his tank, and it was quickly dropping from the green to the red.

Alan's wide eyes met his, and Gordon was quickly swimming around to the back of Alan's suit, ignoring the pain that wanted to make itself known in his arm.

Gordon's eyes quickly tracked over the metal plating on his tank, and soon found the problem. There was a small crack, almost unnoticeable if you weren't looking for it. Tiny bubbles of air were escaping, and although it didn't seem to be a big leak, it had already taken them a while to notice it. Plus, the readings from Alan's suit showed them that they didn't have long before his level of oxygen was critical.

"We don't have time for that, Virgil." Gordon swam back around to face Alan's watch, where Virgil's hologram had reappeared. "Alan's suit has a leak and we have nothing here to fix it. We're going to have to find our own way back to the surface."

Virgil stilled in his movements as he was in the middle of putting together a pod.

"I thought you said you were trapped? How are you going to get out?"

Alan quickly pulled up the map and began to track down another route out of the building.

"There's a staircase that we can swim up. The path looks clear, so we should be able to get up to the surface with no problem." Alan failed to mention the problem of running out of air on the way, but Gordon didn't want to bring it up. He could already hear the shake in Alan's voice as he spoke.

"But that's on the other side of the building!" Virgil evidently had pulled up a visual of the map as well. "Are you sure that will be quicker?"

"It's better than just sitting around." Gordon turned his back to his older brother and positioned himself in front of the doors. It may have been a better idea to wait, but Gordon didn't want to risk his little brother's life by not trying to help in some way. "Al, help me pry these doors open."

Alan came over to him and together they worked to push the doors open. It was hard work and Alan did most of it. It wasn't exactly easy to push open a heavy, metal door when you only had one arm to use, but eventually they managed to get the door open just wide enough to slip through.

Gordon swam through first and Alan followed right behind him. After they had informed Virgil that they were moving, despite his concerns he voiced, they quickly headed off on their way out.

Gordon swam as fast as he could, but his arm made it difficult to match the speed he usually reached. Alan wasn't as good as a swimmer as Gordon was, which meant he hung behind slightly, even with Gordon's reduced speed.

Gordon constantly kept one eye on his brother to make sure that he was still following, but before they had even reached the stairwell, Alan's movements were already slower and more sluggish.

When they made it to the stairs, Gordon grasped hold of Alan's arm and pulled him along as he knew Alan could no longer make it all the way on his own. There were several floors that they had to make it up, and going up the stairs was not as straightforward as the elevator shaft.

The staircases were built in a U shape, which meant that Gordon had to keep twisting around and changing the direction he was swimming in, rather than just going straight up. This was made harder by the fact that Alan was quickly becoming a dead weight on his arm, and he had to pull his brother up along with him and compensate for two people swimming.

It felt like an eternity until Gordon finally broke the top level, which was now just as flooded as the rest of the facility. Alan had stopped kicking a whole floor earlier, and the exertion and pain, along with the worry for his brother, had Gordon panting for breath. He had to stop as soon as they reached the top steps, but he used the short break to check on his brother.

Alan's face looked pale past his helmet and Gordon wasn't too sure if he was still breathing. He lifted his brother's watch, and the display of his oxygen levels were less than comforting.

It said that there was less than a minute of air left in the tank, and Gordon knew he had to make a decision.

Both his and Alan's tanks were the same. They could very easily be switched out with each other and attached onto the other's suit. The only difference in them was the choice of colour.

After years of training and swimming, Gordon knew he could hold his breath for much longer than any of his brothers. There wasn't far to go now until they reached the exit, and Gordon only had to hope that it was close enough.

He quickly did some mental maths. On a good day, Gordon could hold his breath for almost ten minutes. But that was when he was sat still at the bottom of the pool and all his energy was on not sucking in a breath too soon.

This was different. He would be swimming and using up more energy, and so his need for oxygen would be cut much shorter, possibly only to a few minutes. If he swam fast, Gordon reckoned he could make it back in about six minutes, but that didn't count in the factors of dragging Alan along and his broken arm.

He would just have to leave this down to chance.

He started holding his breath only a few moments after he detached his tank from his back. There was still a bit of fresh oxygen in his helmet, but he didn't want to risk it.

Gordon took Alan's off his back too, and he quickly realised he'd forgotten about how this part would be hard with only one functional arm. Nevertheless, he got his tank attached to Alan in just a few seconds.

As soon as he was sure his brother was getting oxygen again, he was moving again.

With one arm wrapped around Alan's waist he knew he couldn't let his injury slow him down. He swallowed the pain and allowed his arm to help push him and Alan through the water.

It was much slower work than he would have liked, and he was an idiot for previously thinking that the stairs were the hard part of this journey.

His head started to pound and his lungs were screaming at him for air, but he had to force himself to keep moving. At some point, his vision started to go black around the edges, but he kept his eyes on the end of the hallway, where he knew the exit was. So close now.

He kept his legs kicking behind him despite the fact that they felt like lead. Even though he knew he was moving too slow, as long as he kept moving was enough.

Leading up to the exit door was another set of stairs, only one level high to lead out above ground. Gordon hadn't even realised he'd reached them until he swam straight into them.

He used the steps to pull Alan and him through the water, now that his limbs felt too heavy to move. The water helped lift them up the staircase, and suddenly they broke out into the air.

The water had only reached halfway up the stairs, so Gordon slumped down on the first steps that were still free from the flood, with Alan next to him.

Gordon was acutely aware of the need to take off his helmet and breathe in the fresh air, but his arms were unresponsive.

Thankfully, he didn't need to because there was suddenly someone there doing it for him.

The rush of air was both amazing and all too much. He choked on the oxygen that rushed too quickly into his lungs and it made his head spin.

He didn't know if he had passed out, but without realising he'd moved, he was suddenly looking up at the ceiling of Thunderbird 2's infirmary.

His gaze moved around the room until it settled on the other bed in the room.

Alan was laying on it, his eyes still closed and an oxygen mask over his face. Virgil was standing over him with his back to Gordon, but he seemed to feel eyes on him as he spun around.

"Hey." Virgil came to stand next to his bed, and he had a relieved look on his face. "How're you feeling?"

Gordon didn't even know where to start. His lungs still felt like they were on fire even with the oxygen mask he also had on, and his head was pounding and making him dizzy. But he didn't know what could be done about that right now, so he focused on something else.

"Arm 'urts."

"Sorry, I was just about to look at that. I just wanted to check on Alan first."

"How is he?" Gordon's eyes drifted back to their littlest brother as Virgil moved away to get some things for his arm.

"Actually pretty good, thanks to you." Virgil reappeared with his supplies and gently lifted Gordon's arm from the bed. "Although it was kind of reckless to swap oxygen tanks."

"Woulda done it again." Despite saying that, Gordon would happily avoid holding his breath for that long under those conditions for the rest of time.

Gordon winced as Virgil started to remove the suit around his injured arm, and Virgil muttered an apology. To distract himself from the pain, his looked back over at Alan.

"He really is okay?" Alan looked as if he could just be sleeping, but Gordon knew what the effects were of going without oxygen for a certain amount of time. He didn't know how long it was before Gordon had managed to connect his tank to his suit.

"Yep. I might need to run some more tests, on both of you." He gave Gordon a pointed look, and Gordon did feel a little guilty that he made his own condition worse to help Alan. "But he should be back to normal in a few days. You, on the other hand, will have to deal with this broken arm for a while."

Gordon grimaced as he knew how he was now going to be grounded, but then his mind went to the man who caused all of this.

"That man, the one who tampered with the elevator, he said he did it because someone died. That we were to blame. Do you know who he was?"

Virgil's brow creased and he stopped in his movements to take in Gordon's words.

"He said that?" He asked, and Gordon nodded in confirmation. "Hold on."

Virgil moved over to the holoprojecter in the corner of the medbay, and a moment later John appeared.

"John, Gordon says that the worker who did this blames us for something. Could you find out what it is?"

"Do you remember what he looked like?" The question was directed at Gordon, and he had to wrack his brain through the fuzz that the lack of oxygen had left behind to remember.

"Uh, dark hair with a beard. Tanned, pretty tall." Gordon knew that that description was pretty generic, but it had been hard to take a lot in when the best look he got at the guy was when he was about to try and kill him.

John's gaze moved to something outside of the hologram and Gordon assumed he was looking at a list of all the employees of the facility.

"Is this him?" John asked just a couple of minutes later, and a photo of a man appeared. The same man that had sent Gordon and Alan down that elevator shaft.

Gordon couldn't find it in him to reply, so he just gave them a shaky nod.

"I don't recognise him. Has been involved on one of our rescues before, John?"

"I don't think so, Virgil. Just give me a moment to look into it."

John went quiet again and Virgil went back to splinting up Gordon's arm. Just as Virgil finished up, John finally spoke. He made a quiet noise and Gordon's concern about the situation grew.

"Oh."

"What?" Virgil gently laid Gordon's newly splinted arm back down and he faced John again. "Did you find something?"

"Yeah. He had a wife, and a child."

The way he phrased that one sentence sent Gordon's heart to his throat.

"Had?" He didn't mean for his voice to come out so shaky.

"Apparently they all went to vacation together last May, in Taiwan."

Gordon's stomach dropped as he knew when, or rather what he was referring to.

"The earthquake?" Virgil voiced just what he was thinking. "But all those people who- who died were gone before we'd even arrived. We saved everyone we could."

That had been a difficult rescue. Even with all of them working tirelessly for days clearing the wreckage, so many lives had been lost. But Virgil was right, after they had arrived, any remaining survivors were saved. Those deaths were not their fault, and it had taken them all a while to come to terms with that. But it seemed that not everyone knew that.

"So, he was the one who flooded the facility? To lead us here?" Gordon couldn't help but look over at Alan again. "To hurt us."

"Grief effects people in different ways. Maybe he thought that he would feel better."

"Where is he now?" Gordon's eyes flickered back to Virgil.

"With the other workers, on their way to the hospital to be checked over." Virgil then stood up straight and Gordon could hear him take a deep breath. "John, contact the hospital and make sure he gets the help me needs."

John nodded and then his hologram disappeared. Virgil turned away briefly and then was back at Gordon's side.

"Take these." He held out two pills and a small cup of water. "They'll help with the pain."

Gordon took the pills with his free hand and washed them down with the water, once the mask was removed. Virgil took the empty cup from him when he was done.

"I'll put a proper cast on it once we're back at the island. But right now, I'm going to go and start the landing procedure."

"We're home already?" Gordon hadn't even been too sure that they were in the air yet.

"Almost." Virgil smiled and he ran his hand through Gordon's hair. "Go to sleep if you want."

"Wha-?" Gordon hadn't even felt sleepy, but now that the pain in his arm was starting to go numb, his whole body was going with it. His eyelids felt heavy, and it was starting to get harder to keep them open. He was beginning to wonder what those pills really were that Virgil gave him.

"Once you wake up your arm will be all better. And Alan might be awake too."

That did sound appealing, which was why he allowed his eyes to close all the way and give in to sleep.

He heard Virgil make his way back to the cockpit and then felt the rumbles beneath him as Thunderbird 2 started to land, but he was out before the struts had reached the ground.


	17. Stumbling and Staggering

_Gordon + Stumbling and Staggering_

* * *

It took all of his energy to keep himself upright and force his feet to take another step forward.

Every inch of him was in pain and he could still taste the smoke in the air as a fire continued to burn behind him. He wasn't sure his legs should still be holding his weight, but it was adrenaline that kept him going.

He had to keep going.

Each step he took was another step towards freedom.

The ground beneath his feet was soft but he still found himself stumbling, almost tripping over into the sand. But he couldn't fall down, because if he did, he knew he would never get up again.

A loud bang sounded behind him and the ground rumbled beneath his feet as the building he'd just come from collapsed some more, and he staggered. One arm flew out to stabilise himself from falling, the other limp at his side and refusing to move.

The sun above him burned down on his face, but it was nothing compared to heat of that fire. The fire he'd set to escape.

He couldn't see anything past the bright light that shined down on him without any clouds to block the sky, but that didn't make much of a difference. All he had to do was to make sure he kept moving forward, whether he could see where he was going or not.

His next step sent blinding hot pain up his right leg and it buckled beneath him, but he managed to stay standing. He stopped walking as his lungs shook under the smoke that filled them, and he was forced into a coughing fit.

His chest felt like it was going to explode in pain and once the coughing stopped, he wasn't sure he was going to breathe again. His chest heaved as he attempted to suck in another breath through the pain, and it felt like an eternity until he felt air rush back into his lungs.

Now he'd stopped walking, he didn't think he could continue. He knew all it would take was another step forward and then he would get himself moving again, but he couldn't even find it in him to do that. All he could do was keep himself standing.

There was a sound, in the distance. Past the noise of the fire crackling and the building collapsing.

His eyes were drawn to the sky when the sound got louder, and the sun was blocked from his vision.

Something big loomed over him in the sky, casting a shadow over him, and Gordon couldn't find it in his mind to pinpoint what it was.

He just watched in a pain-filled trance as the large thing moved down from the sky to land in front of him.

It wasn't until a figure moved down from the object that he finally knew what it was.

It was help, and it had come for him.

Knowing it was now safe, his legs finally gave out from underneath him. He saw the blurry figure run over to him as his body crashed to the ground.

He should have felt pain as he hit the floor, but he didn't feel anything. All he felt was relief as he knew he didn't have to fight anymore, and numb as darkness consumed him.

* * *

Scott flew across the sky as he headed to the rescue site. Even at times like this, when his worries should be distracted by the issue at hand, his mind kept drifting back to his brother.

Gordon had been missing for weeks now, and none of them were any closer to finding out where he was.

They had decided to get back into doing rescues because there were still people who needed their help, and after they had exhausted all their methods of searching they were all just sitting around anyway.

Scott appreciated the distraction and the way the rescues made him not feel so helpless, but he still couldn't stop thinking about Gordon.

Scott felt like he had failed him after not finding him for so long. Each day that passed where he wasn't back home made Scott a little more like he wasn't ever going to come home. It was all too similar to dad.

As he got closer to the rescue zone, Scott shook himself of his thoughts. There were lives at stake here and he needed to concentrate.

John had informed them of a building that had suddenly caught fire and collapsed. It was in the middle of a desert, and the strangest part about it was that by all accounts, this building shouldn't even be there. It wasn't on any map, and there was no information on any structures out here in the desert.

Scott had decided to file that information away to deal with once the rescue was over, so he could focus on getting any survivors out safely.

As Scott flew across the desert, he could see smoke in the distance. There was a big grey cloud of it that billowed into the sky and it only took a couple more minutes of flying to see what the source of it was.

A stone building that must have once been quite big now lay crumpled in a heap of debris and wreckage.

Scott wondered what could have caused such a destruction all the way out here. He surveyed the area, but as he flew around the building, something caught his eye.

A speck that looked all too like a person, stumbling away from the scene. Scott flew TB1 over to them as they would need his help, or they could tell them whether there were more people stuck inside the building.

However, as Scott got closer, there was a sense of familiarity with the person. It wasn't until Scott was landing when he caught sight of the soft tuft of blond hair that was so his little brother.

Scott jumped from his seat before it had fully descended and ran over his brother.

Gordon was standing still, wobbling on the spot and didn't even react as Scott got closer.

Then, he was tipping to the side.

"Gordon!" Scott yelled as he hurried over to him, but before he could reach his brother, Gordon crashed into the ground.

Scott fell to his knees as he reached Gordon. His hands hovered over his brother, but he had no idea what to do or where it was safe to touch him. Every part of Gordon looked battered and bruised.

Scott's fingers flew to his iR button on his sash, and he smacked his hand against it quickly.

"I have Gordon."

The reaction he got at first was silence, and then all the voices came rushing in at once.

"Gordon?"

"What do you mean?"

Virgil and John both spoke in unison, with the same amount of confusion and shock in their voices as Scott was feeling.

"I mean he's here. He must have come from the building." Scott glanced over to the burning shell of a building and was putting a few of the pieces together. He had so many questions racing around in his head, but without Gordon conscious they likely weren't going to get answered right now. "He's hurt, though. Virgil, how far out are you?"

"About ten minutes," Virgil was quick to reply, also knowing that this was not a time to waste precious seconds.

Scott nodded even though no one could see him. "Just get here as quick as you can."

"FAB."

Scott turned his attention back onto his little brother that was laying in front of him. Gordon still hadn't moved since he'd collapsed, and his eyes were still closed.

Scott had no idea where to start. Gordon's face was covered in ash that mingled thickly with the blood dripping down his face. Beneath that, his face looked slightly burnt from the fire.

His left arm was lying next to him at a weird angle that indicated of a dislocated shoulder. There were bruises covering the skin that could be seen, and his right arm didn't look much better.

His shirt was singed but he didn't look too burnt underneath it, which was good, all things considered. It was his right leg that Scott was worried about.

All the way up to almost his hip, his skin was covered in third degree burns. Scott wondered what could have happened, and he reckoned that maybe something heavy and burning had landed on him.

Scott grimaced at the thought. He knew how burns like that felt from experience.

Although, the thought had him looking up at the building again. Gordon had made it about a quarter of a mile before he'd collapsed. Scott was sure that he had only fallen because Scott had arrived, and that his brother would have gone much further if he needed to.

Scott had no idea how he had made it past a few steps in his condition. On top of his injuries, he seemed skinnier and there were bags under his eyes, which made Scott wonder with anger just what kind of treatment his brother had been given these past weeks.

He knew he had to get Gordon out of the hot sun and the sand that threatened to get into his wounds, but he was reluctant to move him and leave him to get a stretcher. He didn't want to wait for TB2, though.

"I'll be back in a minute, okay?"

Gordon still didn't stir as Scott laid a gentle hand on a part of him that wasn't injured. Scott pushed himself up from the sand and hurried back over to TB1.

He grabbed a hoverstretcher from the back of the ship and was back at Gordon's side in less than a minute.

As gently and as softly as possible, Scott got his brother onto the stretcher. Just as Scott stood up next to the raised stretcher, he could hear TB2 approaching in the distance.

The big, green ship arrived quickly, but in that time, Scott had moved Gordon to the shade of TB1. He would have preferred to get him out of the heat and into the air conditioning of his own ship, but he knew in the time it would take to transport his brother inside, Virgil would have already touched down.

So, he waited next to his unconscious little brother until TB2's module descended, and Virgil came running out.

"What are we dealing with?" Virgil asked when he took Gordon from him and started directing the stretcher to the module, with Scott hot on his heels. Virgil stepped quickly into his role of family medic, when Scott knew he wanted to know more about what was happening here.

Scott also had those questions, about why their missing brother had suddenly appeared to them, why he was taken in the first place, what was done to him whilst he was gone. But these were questions that maybe Gordon had the answer for, and unfortunately for them he still hadn't woken up.

"Burns ranging from first to third degree, dislocated left shoulder, possible concussion as well as smoke inhalation," Scott listed off from his initial assessment. "I didn't have a medscanner on me, so I don't know about any internal injuries."

"Alright," Virgil nodded as they reached the medbay, and he pulled the stretcher over to the bed. "Help me get him up."

Scott did as he was told, and then started to fetch the medical supplies that Virgil needed.

By the time that Scott made it back to his side, Virgil was just strapping an oxygen mask over Gordon's mouth as a hologram of his recent scan hovered above him.

"Could you start by cutting his clothes away from his injuries?" Virgil requested as he took Gordon's left arm into his hands.

"Sure." Scott grabbed the medical scissors and started cutting away Gordon's clothes, at least what remained of them, from the burns on his legs. At the same time, he heard a familiar crunch as Virgil popped Gordon's shoulder back into the socket.

"Virg, you think we can handle this?" Now that Scott could get a good look at Gordon's injuries, as his clothes were cut away and a medscan showed the true extent of how much Gordon was hurt, Scott was feeling overwhelmed by the sure extent of it all.

What had happened to Gordon in there?

"No." Virgil was sure in his answer, even if he looked a little reluctant to admit it. Scott knew it hurt Virgil when one of his brothers were hurt so much that he couldn't help them on his own. It was a feeling of helplessness, which was a feeling Scott knew all too well. "We're going to need to take him to a hospital. We should set off as soon as we can."

Scott nodded, already contemplating whether he should pilot TB2, even if that would mean leaving TB1 in the middle of nowhere.

But as Scott thought about that, he remembered why they had come here in the first place.

"Virgil, the rescue." Scott turned to his brother, who had a concentrated frown on his face, but he looked up at Scott's words.

As much as Scott wanted to leave the people who took his brother in the dust, he still had a duty as a member of International Rescue to save lives, no matter whether they were good or bad. If he rescued them, then he also had the chance to get some answers about what had happened to Gordon and why he was taken.

Not only that, there may have been other innocent people in that building who had been taken just like Gordon. Although, a part of Scott didn't believe that was true, because he knew Gordon wouldn't leave anyone behind.

"You should go, Scott," Virgil broke him out of his thoughts. "I'll take Gordon to the hospital and once you're done here you can follow in TB1. There's not much you can do for him now; he needs professional help." Virgil added when Scott still wasn't convinced.

"Fine, but I'll be as quick as I can." Scott cast one last look at Gordon, who still had yet to move, and then he was hurrying out of the big ship into his own to grab his fire-resistant suit.

* * *

When Scott was done at the rescue site, he sped towards the hospital that Virgil had told him he'd taken their brother to.

From all his searching, he couldn't find another person left alive in the building. Whatever had caused the destruction had done a number on the whole facility and everyone in it. The way that Gordon was the only one out gave Scott an inkling as to who had done it.

Even though he couldn't find anyone to save, he still put out the fire so it wouldn't cause an immediate hazard. He then contacted the GDF so that they could help clean up and uncover whatever had been happening here, and then he left the site.

He landed his bird on the roof of the hospital next to his brother's and made his way to the staircase.

He found Virgil easily after some help from a couple of nurses. He was pacing the floor of a hallway, but as soon as he saw Scott approaching, he hurried over to him.

"Is he okay?" Scott was asking before they'd even reached each other.

Virgil gave him a relieved nod and Scott dropped the anxiety he was carrying on his shoulders.

"He's in surgery right now, but he should be out soon," Virgil explained. "How did the rest of the rescue go?"

"Well, there was no one left in the building." Scott leaned up against the closest wall as he felt the long day catch up to him. "They all went up in flames with that building. I have no idea how it got so destroyed."

"I have one theory." Virgil cast a brief glance down the hall, likely in the direction of where the theatre, and their little brother, was.

"I guess now we know why John couldn't find that building on the map." Scott tipped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He was exhausted trying to come up with answers as to what was going on. "Did you find anything out on the way here about how Gordon ended up there?"

"No. But we might find out now."

Scott opened his eyes and stood up straighter when he caught sight of the doctor making their way over to them.

As she got to them, she explained the extent of Gordon's injuries as well as how his surgery had gone successfully.

"He's awake. Do you want to see him?" She asked them.

Virgil and Scott nodded without hesitation, and she started to lead them to their brother's room.

"I guess now we can maybe get some answers." Virgil sent Scott a look, which Scott returned, and then the two of them were opening the door to Gordon's room.

* * *

_I know this ends kind of abruptly, but I didn't know how to continue it. You can fill in the answers as to what happened to Gordon XD_


	18. Lured into a Trap

_Gordon + Lured into a Trap_

* * *

"Gordon, report."

There was silence over the comms and Virgil clenched the controls on Thunderbird 2 tighter, if that was even possible.

"_Gordon_."

Still nothing, and Virgil was a split second away from heading into the module and putting together his own pod to go and fish his brother out of the water. But before he could, the comms finally crackled to life as his brother's voice broke the silence.

"I'm here. I'm okay."

Virgil let out a deep breath as he slumped in relief, his heart rate returning to normal for the first time since he'd heard the warn of an explosion from John. The period of silence from Gordon's end afterwards had Virgil picturing the worst things.

"You're really alright? Are you able to pilot 4 back to the surface?" That explosion from the underwater research facility had been so big that Virgil had heard it from where he was in the sky. It had caused the surface of the water to ripple, and Virgil would have been surprised if Gordon had made it out unscathed, even if he said he was fine.

"Yeah, Virg. I even got the crew out alright as well. We're coming up now."

Virgil raised an eyebrow at Gordon's response, but didn't question him any further. It was just in his brother's nature to make light of the situation and say he was fine when he wasn't. But Virgil knew he wasn't going to get anything out of his brother like this, so he waited to talk to him about it until Gordon was safely back in Thunderbird 2.

"FAB."

* * *

Virgil made his way to the module once Thunderbird 4 was docked and the module was secure back in 2's belly. The crew of the research lab was just coming out of the submersible, with Gordon right behind them.

Virgil directed the crew to the cockpit where there were seats for them, but he kept Gordon behind with a hand on his arm.

"Are you sure you're fine? No injuries or anything? That explosion seemed pretty big." Virgil's eyes traced over his little brother, but he didn't see anything that should be concerning. That didn't mean there weren't any internal injuries or injuries hidden by his suit.

"Yes, Virgil." Gordon rolled his eyes but laughed. "I really am okay. I was nowhere near the blast anyway."

"Still, I'd like to be safe. Let me get a medscanner on you." Virgil turned to find where a scanner would be stored in the module, but then he heard footsteps behind him.

Virgil turned just in time to see Gordon quickly making his way out of the module.

"Gordon!" Virgil called after him. Gordon turned to grin at him.

"You worry too much, big brother."

And with that, Gordon went through the door and headed towards the cockpit. Virgil followed him as he grumbled under his breath, the medscanner forgotten.

* * *

Once they got back to the island, it was almost forgotten about. Brains ran some checks on Thunderbird 4, but other than a few scratches, she was fine. Gordon was still his usual, jovial self and even wanted to head straight to the pool after they got back, so Virgil didn't have any reason to be worried.

He did keep a close eye on his brother for the next few days that followed, but Gordon really did seem fine, so Virgil eventually let it go.

It wasn't long later that he regretted doing so.

* * *

Gordon stood in the kitchen. It was dark as he hadn't bothered to turn on a light, but it was still quite bright in the room as the full moon shined down from the sky.

He was looking out the window, past the pool to the ocean beyond. He finally felt free now that he didn't have Virgil breathing down his neck at every moment. He was tired of pretending that everything was fine, when all he wanted was to do what he came here to do.

The time to act was now.

He heard the sound of footsteps before they even began to descend the stairs to the kitchen. A light was switched on and then Alan appeared.

"Gordon?" Alan asked sleepily as he caught sight of him just standing in the kitchen, in the dark. "What're you doing up?"

Gordon didn't answer. Instead, he stared at Alan, contemplating if now really was the time. No one else was around, maybe he could take care of this one and then move onto the others, one by one.

"Gordon?" Alan promoted when he didn't reply, his voice growing concerned at Gordon's silence. "Is everything alright?"

Alan took a step closer, and that was when he made his decision. It was now or never.

Gordon moved swiftly across the kitchen and closed the distance between them in a heartbeat.

The shock was clear on Alan's face at his quick movements, but before he could react further, Gordon grabbed him by the throat with one hand.

He lifted Alan by the neck and pinned him against the closest wall.

Alan tried to struggle, his hands clawing at Gordon's wrist as his feet tried to kick out at him, but it was nothing against Gordon's strength, and they both knew it was a losing battle.

* * *

On any other day, Scott would have been displeased at the idea of having to stay up late, _again_, and go through reports. But in hindsight, he wouldn't have wanted to be doing anything else.

Scott was sat at his father's desk, the holoscreen up in front of him as he got through the final report.

A flash of movement across the room caught his eye, and Scott moved his gaze from the screen and towards Alan, who was just in the edge of the light shining from the lamp on the desk.

"Alan?"

Alan jumped out of his skin as he spun towards Scott, and Scott tried not to chuckle at how he had clearly surprised his little brother.

"You okay?"

Alan rubbed his tired eyes as he nodded his head.

"Yeah, just getting some water." Alan pointed towards the steps that lead down into the kitchen. "Why are _you_ up?"

"Working." Scott gestured to the screen. Alan tilted his head and raised an eyebrow, and Scott knew just what he was thinking. "Yes, it's late, but I'm almost done. Promise."

"Alright." Alan still seemed sceptical, but also sleepy which was likely why he brushed Scott off and headed off without any more questions.

Scott watched him go, and then turned back to his work.

He wasn't working on it long when he heard voices coming from the kitchen, and then a loud _thump_.

Scott got up from the desk, wondering who Alan was talking to and what he had gotten himself into to be making so much noise.

He would have put the loud noises down to Alan stumbling into all the furniture in his tired state, but it was the voices that had Scott concerned. As far as Scott was aware, all of his family were in bed. He hadn't seen anyone around before Alan had appeared, and it wasn't like anyone to sneak around. Except for maybe Kayo.

The closer Scott got to the kitchen, the more worried he grew. In place of talking were muffled noises, but other than that, there was nothing.

Scott picked up his pace.

"Gordon!" Scott couldn't believe his eyes as he entered the kitchen. Gordon was standing there, pinning their youngest brother against the wall with a hand to his throat.

Gordon didn't stop when Scott called out his name, only turned his head towards him to show that he'd heard him.

The look that Gordon sent him was so unlike his brother that it had Scott frozen to the spot. It was cold, devoid of all emotion and there wasn't a trace the usual sunshine that Gordon always possessed.

However, when Scott moved his gaze onto his youngest brother, it was the silent plea that Alan shot him that had Scott moving again.

"Get off him!" Scott yelled as he rushed forward. He shoved Gordon away with all his might, and as Gordon stumbled to the side, Alan fell to the floor.

Alan gasped and coughed as oxygen flooded back into his lungs. Scott was next to his side in a second, and quickly pulled him from the floor to get behind him and away from Gordon.

"What do you think you're doing?" Scott turned back to Gordon once Alan was at a safe distance away. His little brother stood leant up against a wall as he regained his breath, but his eyes were also on Gordon.

Gordon had regained his footing and stood glaring at Scott from the other side of the kitchen. He didn't answer Scott's question, because before he had the chance, Virgil came barrelling into the room.

"What's going on?"

Virgil's hair was sticking up every which way and he was still in his pyjamas, so he had definitely just been woken up from the middle of sleeping. He came over to stand next to Scott, and he glanced between the three of them, confused.

"It's Gordon, he-" Scott didn't know _what_ he was, but he was not acting like himself. There was something very wrong here.

Before Scott could find the words to explain what was happening, Gordon turned away from them. Scott watched him cautiously as he turned his back to them, and then he abruptly spun around.

In his hand, there was a chef's knife that he'd pulled from the knife block.

"Gordon, I don't know what's wrong, but-" Scott didn't have a chance to finish before Gordon darted towards them, knife held out in front of him.

Virgil jumped in front of Scott quicker than Scott could react. Virgil grabbed Gordon's wrist with the kind of reflexes that Scott didn't even realise his brother had the capabilities of possessing, and attempted to twist the knife out of Gordon's grip.

Gordon didn't let go, though, and somehow managed to counter the bigger man's strength and send him onto the floor.

Virgil slammed into the ground and Gordon stood over him. He raised the knife in his hand, but in doing so, his back was turned to Scott.

Scott grabbed the raised arm and pulled Gordon towards him and away from their brother. Gordon's back hit Scott's chest, and Scott used one arm to keep his brother in place whilst the other tried to wrestle the knife out of his hand.

"Gordon, I don't know what's gotten into you, but we can help!" Scott tried to plead with his brother, but Gordon appeared to ignore his words as he continued to fight against him.

There was then a sharp pain in his abdomen as Gordon's elbow connected. The air was expelled out of Scott as he was shoved back with a strength that Scott didn't think that even his little brother, who swam several laps every day, had the possibility to possess.

Virgil had managed to stand up in the time that Scott had been wrestling Gordon, and was ready to dodge out of the way when Gordon darted toward him again. The knife was wrestled between them some more, and the two of them moved so fast that Scott couldn't tell who was winning. He tried to step closer to help Virgil out, but a flash of silver in his direction had him moving back.

The two of them spun around, and then suddenly Gordon was thrown back into the refrigerator doors.

They were all still for a moment and Scott prepared for Gordon to advance on them again, but he didn't. Instead, his eyes moved down, and Scott's gaze followed to find the knife was now embedded in his stomach.

"Gordon, I-"

Virgil sounded shocked as he stood there, too scared to move as he realised what he'd done. Not that it was his fault, and Scott knew that, but he didn't think his brother saw it as the accident that it was.

Scott was also too scared to move, and he was frozen to the spot as he watched blood start to pour out from around the knife. It wasn't until Gordon started to pull the knife out that Scott jumped into action.

"Don't touch it!" Scott rushed forward, wondering why of earth Gordon thought that would be a good idea, but he put it down to shock.

However, Gordon pulled the knife out in one quick motion before Scott had even managed to reach him, and then Scott stopped still in shock for a whole other reason.

In the gaping wound that now sat in the middle of Gordon's abdomen, amongst the blood that was still dripping out, where pieces of metal and wires that sparked out of their newly frayed edges.

Scott had seen a lot of open wounds before, but he had never seen anything like that.

"What...?" Scott uttered in disbelief, not understanding what was happening.

"He's a-" Virgil started, but trailed off as he too struggled to find the words to explain it.

"A robot."

Scott turned towards his littlest brother, who was looking a little better and was no longer being propped up by the wall. He was watching Gordon, or rather not-Gordon, with sheer confidence, like he had seen this before.

Now that he'd said it, it made perfect sense to Scott. Of course he understood what a machine was when he saw it, they worked with them after all, and they'd all seen enough movies to gather the whole robots taking over the world fiasco. But it still didn't make any sense that that problem was standing in front of them, wearing the face of their brother.

There was a clatter and Scott spun back around to find that Gordon had dropped the bloody knife on the floor. His two clenched fists came up as he dropped into a stance, and Scott suddenly realised that this was not a fight against his brother. It was a fight against a machine that had been built to look like one of them so that it could take them down.

This android was going to fight them until it had killed them, and now that Scott knew that he was not fighting Gordon, he didn't have to worry about fighting back. All he had to do was take this _thing_ down before it got to any one of them.

The robot rushed towards him and it was all of Kayo's teachings that stopped it from landing a punch on Scott. Scott's arms came up to block the hit and he countered it with punch of his own into its chest.

What Scott didn't take into consideration was that beneath the lifelike skin that made this android take the appearance of his brother, there would been machinery and hard metals that made up the robot beneath.

Pain flared through his knuckles and he pulled his hand back with a wince. The robot barely seemed to acknowledge the fact that Scott had hit it, and was throwing another punch at Scott before he'd had a chance to see it coming.

The force of the hit was strong as it connected with Scott's cheek, and he was sent flying back into the dining table.

Scott groaned as he pushed himself up, his shoulder aching from where he'd landed on it.

"Scott!" Alan suddenly appeared in front of Scott's face, concern written all over his features, even though Scott didn't think the concern should be directed at him. "Are you okay?"

"Don't worry about me." Scott brushed him off, but he did take the hand that was offered and pulled himself up.

They both turned to where the robot still was, but now Virgil had taken the place of Scott. Virgil was certainly the biggest of Scott's younger brothers and he was definitely using that to his advantage. He was holding his own and hadn't been tossed aside as quickly as Scott.

Scott grimaced as Virgil dodged a kick too late and ended up with a foot to the ribs. However, he seemed to gain the upper hand when the next punch came, and instead of blocking the move, he grabbed the robot's wrist.

The robot looked at him in confusion and its other wrist came up to pry Virgil off, but Virgil latch onto that one too. He quickly had the android held in front of him, and in one swift motion that was accompanied by a cry, Virgil threw the machine across the kitchen.

The robot flew towards the breakfast bar, and as its head hit the corner of the countertop, Scott could see its head spin one eighty before it landed in a heap on the floor and the artificial life in its eyes flickered out like the power was shut off.

Virgil stayed where he was standing as he breathed heavily, but Scott rushed past him to see if the machine really was down.

It was unsettling to see what basically looked like his little brother seeming so lifeless on the floor. Scott felt a little nauseous at how its head looked like it was on put the wrong way, and how there was a gaping wound that was still bleeding in the middle of its torso, but he refused to looked away.

"Is it...?" Alan's voice came from next to him as he slowly approached, and Scott nodded.

"It's down."

"What is it? How-how did it-?"

"I don't know." Scott turned to Virgil, who still hadn't moved from his previous spot. He sounded just as confused and worried about this whole situation as Scott felt. He didn't blame him. "But we're going to find out."

* * *

Virgil waited anxiously as Brains, who he and his brothers had dragged out of bed just twenty minutes ago, walked around the _thing_ that looked like but most definitely _wasn't_ Gordon.

Brains had his tablet out in front of him and had already somehow managed to connect the android to his systems and he scoured through the schematics to try and work out whatever the hell was going on here.

"Any idea what that is, Brains?" Scott asked after several long moments where none of them had spoken and had let the engineer get on with his work.

His words sounded a little muffled behind the ice pack that he held to his face. Virgil knew how he must be feeling as he was holding his own ice pack to his ribs. He had fought against Kayo many times in his training and he knew what a punch from her felt like, but it was nothing compared to the blows that machine was capable of sending.

"It appears to be some sort of LMD," Brains finally spoke for the first time since they'd explained the situation to him and brought him down to his lab.

"An LM what now?" Alan queried, voicing just what the rest of them were thinking.

"A Life Model Decoy. It's a highly advanced android that's built to mimic all outward aspects of a living human being." Brains looked up from his tablet to address them all. "The GDF originally came up with the idea after the Global Conflict. They wanted to build a whole army of LMDs to send into future battles so that there would be no human casualties and they could save lives. The _intention_ was that these androids would stay as authentic as possible so that the enemy would not realise they were just attacking machines, hence all the fake blood."

Virgil's eyes briefly darted to the crimson that stained the front of the robot's shirt. Even though he knew it wasn't really Gordon, he still wasn't pleased at the sight of seeing his brother bleeding out at the hands of _him_.

"The GDF scrapped the idea once they realised the, uh, _complications_ of having machines look so realistic and the fears about not knowing who was real and who was a machine. As demonstrated here," he added hesitantly.

"But I never heard anything about this when I was in the Air Force," Scott stated as he moved the ice pack from his cheek to his shoulder. "How do you know so much about it, Brains?"

"The project was meant to remain a secret," Brains continued in his explanation. "But after they decided against the idea, the plans were leaked. I found out about the idea in theory, but never about how to actually _make_ them. No one knew if anyone got a hold of the blueprints, but I guess now we do."

"This doesn't make any sense." Virgil tried his best to keep up, but there were still parts of this that were lost to him. He pinched the bridge of his nose to try and get rid of the headache this was all giving him. "That still doesn't explain how one of them ended up here, looking like our _brother_, and started to _attack_ us."

Brains sighed as he tucked the tablet under one arm and removed his glasses to rub his eyes, seeming just as exasperated at this whole situation as the rest of them. Virgil knew he was trying his best to explain, but it seemed this situation was too much for even him to understand.

"My theory would be that whoever got those blueprints made an LMD of Gordon in a hope to take down International Rescue from the inside, intending that you would all be gone before you realised something was wrong. Although, you do appear to have been lucky." The rest of them scoffed at the idea that any of this was down to _luck_, but Brains ignored them. "It seems that whoever made this was using limited resources. LMDs are designed to possess super strength and speed far beyond a human's capabilities. If you had been fighting against a fully developed LMD, I doubt any of you would have made it out alive."

If the mood could have grown any more sombre, then it did at those words. But that didn't stop Alan from cutting in.

"So, you're telling us that Gordon was an _android_ that was sent here to, what, kill us?" Alan looked between them like Brains was crazy for even suggesting the idea, even though they all knew he wasn't wrong.

"No, Alan. He's saying he was _replaced_ by one." All eyes turned to Scott as he spoke. His fists were clenched, one gripping onto the ice pack so hard that Virgil was waiting for it to burst at any moment, which wasn't unlike how he also felt about Scott. "Which begs the question, where the hell is our real brother?"

"I can find out."

Virgil had almost forgotten that John was present, albeit in a holographic form, as he had been quiet throughout this whole ordeal. He was likely processing it all. Virgil didn't blame him.

"That android has to have some form of connection to wherever it was made, so that it could be given commands, right?" John sounded thoughtful, like he was already working on it and he didn't even need the answer to his question. "If I could link it up to system, maybe I could- I've got it."

Virgil shouldn't have even been surprised it had taken him no time at all.

"Perfect, let's go get our brother back."

Scott moved towards the exit of the lab, but Virgil stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Scott, wait. We need to think about this, we can't just go in there. This is dangerous."

"This is our brother." Scott's eyes were suddenly filled with so much pain that Virgil almost let him go, but he stayed firm.

"I know, but it is also the job of the GDF. We will inform them and they can help us, Kayo too."

Scott seemed reluctant to do so, but he eventually nodded in agreement. Virgil knew what he was feeling, as he would have gladly followed in his brother's footsteps, but he also knew they needed to be reasonable. They couldn't all get caught up on the wrong side of something like this.

"Uh, that doesn't appear to be good."

Virgil and Scott spun back around to face Brains, who was looking at his tablet in worry as alarm symbols appeared above it"

"What is it?"

"I think that there was some sort of failsafe put on this that was activated when John hacked into its systems," Brains said worriedly as his eyes darted from his tablet to the robot. "My readings say that this is ready to blow."

Virgil looked to Scott and then back to Brains, who was frantically tapping at his tablet.

"Is there a way to stop it?"

"By the looks of things, _no_. Run!"

Virgil didn't need telling twice, and he grabbed onto Alan to pull his little brother after him.

The two of them had just about made it behind a small, metal container that held spare parts before there was the sound of screeching metal and fried electricity as the android self-destructed.

When it was over, Virgil peeked over the top of the container.

The explosion didn't seem to have caused a lot of damage. The bench that it was lying on was a wreck and there didn't seem to be a piece of the LMD left. The walls near it were charred black, and the few machines nearby had scratches from the little pieces of metal shrapnel that flew into them.

It wasn't as much destruction as he had been expecting, but it would still be a pain to clean up.

Virgil slumped back down the other side of the container and his head fell against it with a clang.

"I will be _very_ glad when all this is over."

* * *

If it were up to Scott, he would currently not be sitting in the co-pilot's seat of Thunderbird 2, forced to wait and watch as the GDF and Kayo went into the building that John had tracked down.

What he wanted was to be in there with them, searching for his brother. He knew that it was safer here and he was not equipped to chase down bad guys, but that didn't mean he had to like it all the same. He crossed his arms and suck down in his seat, and next to him he could hear Virgil chuckle.

"Stop pouting."

"I'm not pouting. I'm-"

Up until that point, there had been no sign of anyone coming out of the building since everyone had gone in, but now Scott caught sight of several GDF personnel making their way out of the building. And amongst them, there were a few people in handcuffs being pushed toward one of the GDF carriers.

"Scott, _don't_. That isn't what we're here for."

Scott hadn't even realised he'd stood up from his seat until Virgil spoke. He wanted nothing more than to pay back the pain that this group had inflicted upon his family, but that would have to wait. Maybe he would get a chance once he knew that Gordon was safe.

"It's clear." Kayo's voice abruptly chimed over the comms. "You guys are free to come in now."

This time, there was nothing stopping Scott from running out of the ship and across the field that separated him from hopefully reuniting his family.

Scott darted through the door, pushing past a GDF officer who he barely muttered an apology to, and entered the building with Virgil and Alan hot on his heels.

It was at that moment that Scott realised he had no idea where to go, or if there was even any point in searching. How did they know whether Gordon was still _alive_, let alone somewhere in this building?

"Scott!"

Scott looked up to the other end of the corridor he was in to find Kayo rushing towards him.

"I've found him."

The three of them followed her into a room. In the centre of it there was a metal table surrounded by various machines, but laying on top of it was Scott's little brother.

Gordon was wearing what looked like hospital scrubs and there were wires connecting him to the machines that Scott recognised as medical equipment. He was covered in bruises and there were crudely tied, blood-soaked bandages over his arms.

Scott didn't know what kind of injuries Gordon had, that had clearly gone unattended by these people, but after looking at the monitors behind him, he seemed to be in a stable state for now. At least those people had tried to make somewhat of an effort to make sure his brother stayed alive.

"We need to get him out of here, but I don't know what half of this equipment is," Virgil said as he eyed up some of the machines attached to Gordon that most definitely _wasn't_ medical equipment. "I don't know what it'll do to him if I unplug it all."

"We have a problem." Kayo had left the room briefly to speak to the GDF, but she had reappeared in the doorway with a panicked look on her face. "They've found an explosive that's set to go off any moment now. We need to leave."

"These people really like to blow up stuff," Alan muttered.

"We're going to need to get Gordon out of here and deal with any consequences later, Virgil." Scott turned to Virgil, who was quick to agree. They didn't have time to be cautious.

They both got to detaching the machines from Gordon. Scott carefully detached an IV that was in the back of Gordon's hand, and once their brother was free of all the wires and tubes, Virgil scooped him into his arms.

They all hurried out of the building and had barely made it to the safety of Thunderbird 2 when there was an explosion behind them.

Scott turned to find the building that once held their brother start to collapse, and possibly the rest of the tech belonging to that crew with it.

* * *

Virgil's gaze turned away from the bed towards the door as Scott entered the infirmary.

"Thanks." Virgil sent his brother a tired smile as he accepted the coffee that Scott offered him.

Scott sat down in the chair on the other side of the bed with a deep sigh before he took a big sip of his own drink.

"You manage to speak to Colonel Casey?" Virgil asked him, as that was the reason his older brother had disappeared from the room earlier, and he had been gone a while.

Scott nodded as he put his drink onto the bedside table next to him.

"She said there wasn't a trace of LMD tech left in that place. She's searching to see if that crew had anything stored in another facility. There's no way they would destroy it all."

"Unless they didn't want anyone else to get their hands on their plans," Virgil mused. "Did she say anything about who they were, or why they did this?"

Scott seemed disappointed when he shook his head.

"She still figuring out where they came from, but she reckons that they have something to do with the LMD plans getting leaked all those years ago." He picked his drink back up again to take another sip, and Virgil found himself doing the same. "She did say that we can go and maybe find out some information on them ourselves, after Gordon's better."

They both turned to look at the figure that was laying between them. Gordon had barely stirred since they'd found him, apart from the few unintelligible mumblings that he'd sprouted off when they were still in Thunderbird 2, before he'd promptly fallen back to sleep.

The injuries he was suffering from weren't awful, but the fact that they had gone untreated for a while still concerned Virgil, and he wound be keeping a close eye on his little brother for a while.

Virgil had quickly come to the conclusion that Gordon had been taken during that underwater rescue several days ago. It made sense now why Gordon had seemingly made it out of that explosion unharmed.

"I don't think we should tell him."

Scott's eyes left their little brother briefly to shoot Virgil a questioning look.

"At least not yet, not until he's a little better. I know none of it was him, but we know Gordon and he'll still feel guilty about it."

The bruises on Scott's face and Alan's neck were bad enough to look at without Gordon thinking that it was his fault.

"I agree," Scott said after a moment. "We shouldn't put that stress on him whilst he's recovering. He's gone through enough already."

With the hand that wasn't holding onto his mug of coffee, Scott reached forward to grasp onto Gordon's hand where it was laying on the bed. Virgil did the same with the hand that was next to him, and together they kept watch over their little brother. Their _real_ brother.

* * *

_Filling this prompt out gave me a bingo! Finally! Now onto getting a blackout :D_


End file.
